I walked down the lane with him, and sure enough there was a ship in the middle of his field, but such a ship as no man had seen on the water for three hundred years, let alone in the middle of a turnip-field. It was all painted black and covered with carvings, and there was a great bay window in the stern for all the world like the Squire’s drawing-room. There was a crowd of little black cannon on deck and looking out of her portholes, and she was anchored at each end to the hard ground. I have seen the wonders of the world on picture-postcards, but I have never seen anything to equal that.

‘She seems very solid for a ghost-ship,’ I said, seeing the landlord was bothered.

‘I should say it’s a betwixt and between,’ he answered, puzzling it over, ‘but it’s going to spoil a matter of fifty turnips, and missus she’ll want it moved.’ We went up to her and touched the side, and it was as hard as a real ship. ‘Now there ’s folks in England would call that very curious,’ he said.

Now I don’t know much about ships, but I should think that that ghost-ship weighed a solid two hundred tons, and it seemed to me that she had come to stay, so that I felt sorry for landlord, who was a married man. ‘All the horses in Fairfield won’t move her out of my turnips,’ he said, frowning at her.

Just then we heard a noise on her deck, and we looked up and saw that a man had come out of her front cabin and was looking down at us very peaceably. He was dressed in a black uniform set out with rusty gold lace, and he had a great cutlass by his side in a brass sheath. ‘I’m Captain Bartholomew Roberts,’ he said, in a gentleman’s voice, ‘put in for recruits. I seem to have brought her rather far up the harbour.’

‘Harbour!’ cried landlord; ‘why, you’re fifty miles from the sea.’

Captain Roberts didn’t turn a hair. ‘So much as that, is it?’ he said coolly. ‘Well, it’s of no consequence.’

Landlord was a bit upset at this. ‘I don’t want to be unneighbourly,’ he said, ‘but I wish you hadn’t brought your ship into my field. You see, my wife sets great store on these turnips.’

The captain took a pinch of snuff out of a fine gold box that he pulled out of his pocket, and dusted his fingers with a silk handkerchief in a very genteel fashion. ‘I’m only here for a few months,’ he said; ‘but if a testimony of my esteem would pacify your good lady I should be content,’ and with the words he loosed a great gold brooch from the neck of his coat and tossed it down to landlord.

Landlord blushed as red as a strawberry. ‘I’m not denying she’s fond of jewellery,’ he said, ‘but it ’s too much for half a sackful of turnips.’ And indeed it was a handsome brooch.

The captain laughed. ‘Tut, man,’ he said, ‘it ’s a forced sale, and you deserve a good price. Say no more about it’; and nodding good-day to us, he turned on his heel and went into the cabin. Landlord walked back up the lane like a man with a weight off his mind. ‘That tempest has blowed me a bit of luck,’ he said; ‘the missus will be main pleased with that brooch. It’s better than blacksmith’s guinea, any day.’

Ninety-seven was Jubilee year, the year of the second Jubilee, you remember, and we had great doings at Fairfield, so that we hadn’t much time to bother about the ghost-ship, though anyhow it isn’t our way to meddle in things that don’t concern us. Landlord, he saw his tenant once or twice when he was hoeing his turnips and passed the time of day, and landlord’s wife wore her new brooch to church every Sunday. But we didn’t mix much with the ghosts at any time, all except an idiot lad there was in the village, and he didn’t know the difference between a man and a ghost, poor innocent! On Jubilee Day, however, somebody told Captain Roberts why the church bells were ringing, and he hoisted a flag and fired off his guns like a loyal Englishman. ’Tis true the guns were shotted, and one of the round shot knocked a hole in Farmer Johnstone’s barn, but nobody thought much of that in such a season of rejoicing.