night I came to Applewale House. My aunt was the housekeeper there,
and a sort o' one-horse carriage was down at Lexhoe waitin' to take me
and my box up to Applewale.

"I was a bit frightened by the time I got to Lexhoe, and when I saw
the carriage and horse, I wished myself back again with my mother at
Hazelden. I was crying when I got into the 'shay'--that's what we used
to call it--and old John Mulbery that drove it, and was a good-natured
fellow, bought me a handful of apples at the Golden Lion to cheer me
up a bit; and he told me that there was a currant-cake, and tea, and
pork-chops, waiting for me, all hot, in my aunt's room at the great
house. It was a fine moonlight night, and I eat the apples, lookin'
out o' the shay winda.

"It's a shame for gentlemen to frighten a poor foolish child like I
was. I sometimes think it might be tricks. There was two on 'em on the
tap o' the coach beside me. And they began to question me after
nightfall, when the moon rose, where I was going to. Well, I told them
it was to wait on Dame Arabella Crowl, of Applewale House, near by
Lexhoe.

"'Ho, then,' says one of them, 'you'll not be long there!'

"And I looked at him as much as to say 'Why not?' for I had spoken out
when I told them where I was goin', as if 'twas something clever I hed
to say.

"'Because,' says he, 'and don't you for your life tell no one, only
watch her and see--she's possessed by the devil, and more an half a
ghost. Have you got a Bible?'