Down the Ravine by Mary Noailles Murfree — Read

His scheme was thwarted. The boy had come and gone in his absence, all unaware of his proximity and the impending punishment so narrowly escaped.

But when Andy Byers reached the tanyard and went to work, he said nothing to Birt. He did not even allude to the counterfeit apparition in the woods, although Mrs. Price's probable recovery was more than once under discussion among the men who came and went, -- indeed, she lived many years thereafter, to defend her lucky grandchildren against every device of discipline. Byers had given heed to more crafty counsels. On the whole he was now glad that he had not had the opportunity to make Birt and the hickory sprout acquainted with each other. This would be an acknowledgment that he had been terrified by the manufactured ghost, and he preferred foregoing open revenge to encountering the jocose tanner's ridicule, and the gibes that would circulate at his expense throughout the country-side. But he cherished the grievance, and he resolved that Birt should rue it. He had expected that Birt would boast of having frightened him. He intended to admit that he had been a trifle startled, and in treating the matter thus lightly he hoped it would seem that the apparition was a failure.