THE SPOOK. 157 
the radiant summer moon heard it, and the 
ghostly white owl paused to listen to it 
echoing on the still, heated air as he went 
abroad. It was just as if the ghost of some 
old farm-labourer, some bent and gnarled 
smock-frocked harvester of long ago, were 
haunting the vicinity of the hoary church- 
yard, and everlastingly sharpening a scythe— 
perhaps the very scythe of Time—with a whet- 
stone. None could mistake it, no man could 
deny it; steadily, persistently—morning and 
evening—elusive, delusive, here, there, every- 
where, anywhere, and never far from the old 
ha-ha wall round the cedar-sheltered church- 
yard—the steady, unmistakable ‘ Wheep- 
wheep! wheep-wheep! wheep-wheep!’ of 
some person, or persons, unseen, sharpening a 
scythe, or scythes, on a whetstone, or whet- 
stones, and—never staying in the same place. 
It was uncanny. It was weird. It was 
creepy. And it was the more uncanny, and 
weird, and creepy, because one realised that, 
except for the sound, no living persons would 
have even guessed that the maker of it had 
ever been there, had ever come from out the 
night, without explanation at all, to live in 
their midst. It set one thinking. Goodness 
knows what other odd creatures might be 
living unsuspected in the soft sunny fields all 
