It
was generally to somebody's interest to make up these ghosts and frighten
people."
"You take all the romance out of it!" pouted Mavis.
In spite of Mr. Tremayne's most reasonable explanations they clung to the
supernatural side of the stories. It was much more interesting to picture
the demon dog as the property of his Satanic Majesty, than to believe it
an ordinary black retriever with circles of phosphorus round its eyes.
"I vote we go and try and see it for ourselves!" suggested Clive, waxing
bold one evening. The girls agreed, so just before bedtime they sallied
forth in the direction of Tinkers' Lane, a lonely stretch of road that
led from the hillside towards the sea. They were all three feeling half
valiant and half scared, and each had brought some species of protection.
Mavis carried a prayer-book and a little ivory cross, Merle grasped a
poker, and Clive was armed with the hatchet from the wood-pile. So long
as they were on the uplands and could see the stars they marched along
tolerably bravely, but presently Tinkers' Lane turned downhill, and, like
most of its kind in Devon, ran between high fern-grown banks, on the tops
of which grew trees whose boughs almost met overhead and made an archway.
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