There was a thin cloud, like lace, over the moon that night; just enough to make objects painfully distinct, as Captain Belgrave turned out from Mewker's gate, and took the high road toward home. He jogged along, however, quite comfortably, and had just reached the end of Mewker's fence, when he saw a figure on horseback, emerging from the little lane that ran down behind the garden to the pond at the back of the house. The apparition had a sort of red cape around its shoulders; a soldier-cap, with a tall plume, (very like the one the Captain used to wear on parade,) was upon its head; in its hand was a long, formidable-looking staff; and the horse of the spectre was enveloped in a white saddle-cloth, that hung down almost to the ground. What was remarkable, Old Shatter, as if possessed with the devil, actually drew out of the road toward the stranger, and gave a whinny, which was instantly responded to in the most frightful tones by the horse of the spectre. Almost paralyzed, the Captain suffered the apparition to approach him. What a face it had! Long masses of hair, like tow, waved around features that seemed to have neither shape nor color. Its face seemed like a face of brown paper, so formless and flat was it, with great hideous eyes and a mouth of intolerable width. As it approached, the figure seemed to have a convulsion—it rolled so in the saddle; but, recovering, it drew up beside the shaft, and, whirling its long staff, brought such a whack upon Shatter's flank, that the old horse almost jumped out of his harness. Away went the wagon and the Captain, and away went the spectre close behind; fences, trees, bushes, dust, whirled in and out of sight; bridges, sedges, trout-brooks, mills, willows, copses, plains, in moonlight and shadow, rolled on and on; but not an inch was lost or won; there, behind the wagon, was the goblin with his long plume bending, and waving, and dancing, and his staff whirling with terrible menaces, On, and on, and on, and ever and anon the goblin steed gave one of those frightful whinnies that seemed to tear the very air with its dissonance. On, and on, and on! The Captain drove with his head turned back over his shoulder, but Shat knew the road. On, and on, and on! A thought flashes like inspiration through the mind of the Captain, "The horse-pistol!" It is under the cushions. He seizes it nervously, cocks it, and—bang! goes the plume of the goblin. "By gosh!" said
