suppose oxen yoked to a cart cannot run, but on occasion they can plunge
into a wild heavy gallop that man is powerless to curb. The great
strength latent in these animals was apparent now, for, after their long
day's draught, they seemed to become imbued with their driver's panic,
and changed from walking to dashing madly down the road. It was a long
straight incline of three miles from the station to the settlement
called Turrifs. Saul, unable to keep up with the cattle, flung himself
upon the cart, and, with great rattling, was borne swiftly away from his
pursuer. Young Trenholme stopped when he had run a mile. So far he had
gone, determined that, if the man would not stop for his commands, he
should be collared and dragged back by main force to face the thing
which he had brought, but by degrees even the angry young man perceived
the futility of chasing mad cattle. He drew up panting, and, turning,
walked back once more. He did not walk slowly; he was in no frame to
loiter and his run had brought such a flush of heat upon him that it
would have been madness to linger in the bitter cold. At the same time,
while his legs moved rapidly, his mind certainly hesitated--in fact, it
almost halted, unable to foresee in the least what its next opinion or
decision would be. He was not a man to pause in order to make up his
mind. He had a strong feeling of responsibility towards his little
station and its inexplicable tenant, therefore he hurried back against
his will. His only consolation in this backward walk was the key of the
door he had locked, which in haste he had taken out and still held in
his hand. Without attempting to decide whether the thing he had seen was
of common clay or of some lighter substance, he still did not lend his
mind with sufficient readiness to ghostly theory to imagine that his
unwelcome guest could pass through locked doors.

Nor did the ghost, if ghost it was, pass through unopened doors. The
flaw in Trenholme's comfortable theory was that he had forgotten that