EMILY, obedient to Aunt Elizabeth’s command, had eliminated the word “bull” from her vocabulary. But to ignore the existence of bulls was not to do away with them—and specifically with Mr. James Lee’s English bull, who inhabited the big windy pasture west of Blair Water and who bore a dreadful reputation. He was certainly an awesome¹ looking creature and Emily sometimes had fearful dreams of being chased by him and being unable to move. And one sharp November day these dreams came true.
There was a certain well at the far end of the pasture concerning which Emily felt a curiosity, because Cousin Jimmy had told her a dreadful tale about it. The well had been dug sixty years ago by two brothers who lived in a little house which was built down near the shore. It was a very deep well, which was considered a curious thing in that low-lying land near pond and sea; the brothers had gone ninety feet before they found a spring. Then the sides of the well had been stoned up—but the work never went further. Thomas and Silas Lee had quarrelled over some trivial difference of opinion as to
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 what kind of a hood² should be put over it; and in the heat of his anger Silas had struck Thomas on the head with his hammer and killed him.
The well-house was never built. Silas Lee was sent to prison for manslaughter and died there. The farm passed to another brother—Mr. James Lee’s father—who moved the house to the other end of it and planked the well over. Cousin Jimmy added that Tom Lee’s ghost was supposed to haunt the scene of his tragic⁴ death but he couldn’t vouch⁵ for that, though he had written a poem on it. A very eerie⁶ poem it was, too, and made Emily’s blood run cold with a fearful joy when he recited it to her one misty⁷ night by the big potato pot. Ever since she had wanted to see the old well.
Her chance came one Saturday when she was prowling alone in the old graveyard⁸. Beyond it lay the Lee pasture and there was

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