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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23556-0.txt b/23556-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38cc134 --- /dev/null +++ b/23556-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1241 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Unquiet Ghost, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: His Unquiet Ghost + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23556] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +HIS UNQUIET GHOST + +By Charles Egbert Craddock + +1911 + + +The moon was high in the sky. The wind was laid. So silent was the vast +stretch of mountain wilderness, aglint with the dew, that the tinkle of +a rill far below in the black abyss seemed less a sound than an evidence +of the pervasive quietude, since so slight a thing, so distant, could +compass so keen a vibration. For an hour or more the three men who +lurked in the shadow of a crag in the narrow mountain-pass, heard +nothing else. When at last they caught the dull reverberation of a slow +wheel and the occasional metallic clank of a tire against a stone, the +vehicle was fully three miles distant by the winding road in the valley. +Time lagged. Only by imperceptible degrees the sound of deliberate +approach grew louder on the air as the interval of space lessened. At +length, above their ambush at the summit of the mountain's brow the +heads of horses came into view, distinct in the moonlight between the +fibrous pines and the vast expanse of the sky above the valley. Even +then there was renewed delay. The driver of the wagon paused to rest the +team. + +The three lurking men did not move; they scarcely ventured to breathe. +Only when there was no retrograde possible, no chance of escape, when +the vehicle was fairly on the steep declivity of the road, the precipice +sheer on one side, the wall of the ridge rising perpendicularly on the +other, did two of them, both revenue-raiders disguised as mountaineers, +step forth from the shadow. The other, the informer, a genuine +mountaineer, still skulked motionless in the darkness. The “revenuers,” + ascending the road, maintained a slow, lunging gait, as if they had +toiled from far. + +Their abrupt appearance had the effect of a galvanic shock to the man +handling the reins, a stalwart, rubicund fellow, who visibly paled. He +drew up so suddenly as almost to throw the horses from their feet. + +“G'evenin',” ventured Browdie, the elder of the raiders, in a husky +voice affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a +mimic, and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people, +this gift greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed. +“Ye're haulin' late,” he added, for the hour was close to midnight. + +“Yes, stranger; haulin' late, from Eskaqua--a needcessity.” + +“What's yer cargo?” asked Browdie, seeming only ordinarily inquisitive. + +A sepulchral cadence was in the driver's voice, and the disguised +raiders noted that the three other men on the wagon had preserved, +throughout, a solemn silence. “What we-uns mus' all be one day, +stranger--a corpus.” + +Browdie was stultified for a moment Then, sustaining his assumed +character, he said: “I hope it be nobody I know. I be fairly well +acquainted in Eskaqua, though I hail from down in Lonesome Cove. Who be +dead!” + +There was palpably a moment's hesitation before the spokesman replied: +“Watt Wyatt; died day 'fore yestiddy.” + +At the words, one of the silent men in the wagon turned his face +suddenly, with such obvious amazement depicted upon it that it arrested +the attention of the “rev-enuers.” This face was so individual that it +was not likely to be easily mistaken or forgotten. A wild, breezy look +it had, and a tricksy, incorporeal expression that might well befit +some fantastic, fabled thing of the woods. It was full of fine script of +elusive meanings, not registered in the lineaments of the prosaic man +of the day, though perchance of scant utility, not worth interpretation. +His full gray eyes were touched to glancing brilliancy by a moonbeam; +his long, fibrously floating brown hair was thrown backward; his +receding chin was peculiarly delicate; and though his well-knit frame +bespoke a hardy vigor, his pale cheek was soft and thin. All the rustic +grotesquery of garb and posture was cancelled by the deep shadow of a +bough, and his delicate face showed isolated in the moonlight. + +Browdie silently pondered his vague suspicions for a moment “Whar did he +die at?” he then demanded at a venture. + +“At his daddy's house, fur sure. Whar else?” responded the driver. “I +hev got what's lef' of him hyar in the coffin-box. We expected ter make +it ter Shiloh buryin'-ground 'fore dark; but the road is middlin' heavy, +an' 'bout five mile' back Ben cast a shoe. The funeral warn't over much +'fore noon.” + +“Whyn't they bury him in Eskaqua, whar he died!” persisted Browdie. + +“Waal, they planned ter bury him alongside his mother an' gran'dad, what +used ter live in Tanglefoot Cove. But we air wastin' time hyar, an' we +hev got none ter spare. Gee, Ben! Git up, John!” + +The wagon gave a lurch; the horses, holding back in bracing attitudes +far from the pole, went teetering down the steep slant, the locked wheel +dragging heavily; the four men sat silent, two in slouching postures at +the head of the coffin; the third, with the driver, was at its foot. It +seemed drearily suggestive, the last journey of this humble mortality, +in all the splendid environment of the mountains, under the vast +expansions of the aloof skies, in the mystic light of the unnoting moon. + +“Is this bona-fide?” asked Browdie, with a questioning glance at the +informer, who had at length crept forth. + +“I dunno,” sullenly responded the mountaineer. He had acquainted the +two officers, who were of a posse of revenue-raiders hovering in the +vicinity, with the mysterious circumstance that a freighted wagon now +and then made a midnight transit across these lonely ranges. He himself +had heard only occasionally in a wakeful hour the roll of heavy wheels, +but he interpreted this as the secret transportation of brush whisky +from the still to its market. He had thought to fix the transgression +on an old enemy of his own, long suspected of moonshining; but he was +acquainted with none of the youngsters on the wagon, at whom he had +peered cautiously from behind the rocks. His actuating motive in giving +information to the emissaries of the government had been the rancor of +an old feud, and his detection meant certain death. He had not expected +the revenue-raiders to be outnumbered by the supposed moonshiners, and +he would not fight in the open. He had no sentiment of fealty to the +law, and the officers glanced at each other in uncertainty. + +“This evidently is not the wagon in question,” said Browdie, +disappointed. + +“I'll follow them a bit,” volunteered Bonan, the younger and the more +active of the two officers. “Seems to me they'll bear watching.” + +Indeed, as the melancholy cortège fared down and down the steep road, +dwindling in the sheeny distance, the covert and half-suppressed +laughter of the sepulchral escort was of so keen a relish that it was +well that the scraping of the locked wheel aided the distance to mask +the incongruous sound. + +“What ailed you-uns ter name _me_ as the corpus, 'Gene Barker?” demanded +Walter Wyatt, when he had regained the capacity of coherent speech. + +“Oh, I hed ter do suddint murder on somebody,” declared the driver, all +bluff and reassured and red-faced again, “an' I couldn't think quick +of nobody else. Besides, I helt a grudge agin' you fer not stuffin' mo' +straw 'twixt them jimmyjohns in the coffin-box.” + +“That's a fac'. Ye air too triflin' ter be let ter live, Watt,” cried +one of their comrades. “I hearn them jugs clash tergether in the +coffin-box when 'Gene checked the team up suddint, I tell you. An' them +men sure 'peared ter me powerful suspectin'.” + +“_I_ hearn the clash of them jimmyjohns,” chimed in the driver. “I +really thunk my hour war come. Some informer must hev set them men ter +spyin' round fer moonshine.” + +“Oh, surely nobody wouldn't dare,” urged one of the group, uneasily; for +the identity of an informer was masked in secrecy, and his fate, when +discovered, was often gruesome. + +“They couldn't hev noticed the clash of them jimmyjohns, nohow,” + declared the negligent Watt, nonchalantly. “But namin' _me_ fur the dead +one! Supposin' they air revenuers fur true, an' hed somebody along, hid +out in the bresh, ez war acquainted with me by sight----” + +“Then they'd hev been skeered out'n thar boots, that's all,” interrupted +the self-sufficient 'Gene. “They would hev 'lowed they hed viewed +yer brazen ghost, bold ez brass, standin' at the head of yer own +coffin-box.” + +“Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn't +acquainted with _me_,” persisted Watt, with his unique sense of injury. + +Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. “They would hev +jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an' at-tendin' him ter his long +home.” + +“'Gene don't keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt,” one of +the others suggested tactlessly, “'count o' Minta Elladine Biggs.” + +Eugene Barker's off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity +and his evident rancor as he declared: “_I_ ain't carin' fur sech ez +Watt Wyatt. An' they _do_ say in the cove that Minta Elladine Biggs hev +gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin' +kyerds, a-bet-tin' his money, drinkin' apple-jack, an' sech.” + +The newly constituted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if +to retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes +widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he +pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of-the coffin was the +simulacrum of the figure of aman. + +One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned +a significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a +fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of +a more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence +could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted +his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an +indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at +that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box. + +The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed. +The number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at +least one of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the +precipice and the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had +gradually dwindled to a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and +there washed out by recent rains, and one of these indentations might +have afforded an active man access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had +evidently kept abreast of them, speeding along in great leaps through +the lush growth of huckleberry bushes, wild grasses, pawpaw thickets, +silvered by the moon, all fringing the great forests that had given way +on the shelving verge of the steeps where the road ran. Had he overheard +their unguarded, significant words? Who could divine, so silent were the +windless mountains, so deep a-dream the darksome woods, so spellbound +the mute and mystic moonlight? + +The group maintained a cautious reticence now, each revolving the +problematic disclosure of their secret, each canvassing the question +whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy +proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they +venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in midstream and +stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, +as the team manifested an inclination to drink in transit; and thence, +as he stood thus perched, he gazed to and fro, the stretch of dark and +lustrous ripples baffling all approach within ear-shot, the watering +of the horses justifying the pause and cloaking its significance to any +distant observer. + +But the interval was indeed limited; the mental processes of such men +are devoid of complexity, and their decisions prompt. They advanced few +alternatives; their prime object was to be swiftly rid of the coffin +and its inculpating contents, and with the “revenuer” so hard on their +heels this might seem a troublous problem enough. + +“Put it whar a coffin b'longs--in the churchyard,” said Wyatt; for at a +considerable distance beyond the rise of the opposite bank could be +seen a barren clearing in which stood a gaunt, bare, little white frame +building that served all the country-side for its infrequent religious +services. + +“We couldn't dig a grave before that spy--ef he be a revenuer sure +enough--could overhaul us,” Eugene Barker objected. + +“We could turn the yearth right smart, though,” persisted Wyatt, for +pickax and shovel had been brought in the wagon for the sake of an +aspect of verisimilitude and to mask their true intent. + +Eugene Barker acceded to this view. “That's the dinctum--dig a few jes +fer a blind. We kin slip the coffin-box under the church-house 'fore he +gits in sight,--he'll be feared ter follow too close,--an' leave it thar +till the other boys kin wagon it ter the cross-roads' store ter-morrer +night.” + +The horses, hitherto held to the sober gait of funeral travel, were now +put to a speedy trot, unmindful of whatever impression of flight the +pace might give to the revenue-raider in pursuit. The men were soon +engrossed in their deceptive enterprise in the churchyard, plying pickax +and shovel for dear life; now and again they paused to listen vainly +for the sound of stealthy approach. They knew that there was the most +precarious and primitive of foot-bridges across the deep stream, to +traverse which would cost an unaccustomed wayfarer both time and +pains; thus the interval was considerable before the resonance of rapid +footfalls gave token that their pursuer had found himself obliged to +sprint smartly along the country road to keep any hope of ever again' +viewing the wagon which the intervening water-course had withdrawn +from his sight. That this hope had grown tenuous was evident in his +relinquishment of his former caution, for when they again caught a +glimpse of him he was forging along in the middle of the road without +any effort at concealment. But as the wagon appeared in the perspective, +stationary, hitched to the hedge of the graveyard, he recurred to his +previous methods. The four men still within the in-closure, now busied +in shovelling the earth back again into the excavation they had so +swiftly made, covertly watched him as he skulked into the shadow of the +wayside. The little “church-house,” with all its windows whitely aglare +in the moonlight, reflected the pervasive sheen, and silent, spectral, +remote, it seemed as if it might well harbor at times its ghastly +neighbors from the quiet cemetery without, dimly ranging themselves once +more in the shadowy ranks of its pews or grimly stalking down the drear +and deserted aisles. The fact that the rising ground toward the rear of +the building necessitated a series of steps at the entrance, enabled the +officer to mask behind this tall flight his crouching approach, and thus +he ensconced himself in the angle between the wall and the steps, and +looked forth in fancied security. + +The shadows multiplied the tale of the dead that the head-boards kept, +each similitude askew in the moonlight on the turf below the slanting +monument To judge by the motions of the men engaged in the burial and +the mocking antics of their silhouettes on the ground, it must have been +obvious to the spectator that they were already filling in the earth. +The interment may have seemed to him suspiciously swift, but the +possibility was obvious that the grave might have been previously dug +in anticipation of their arrival. It was plain that he was altogether +unprepared for the event when they came slouching forth to the wagon, +and the stalwart and red-faced driver, with no manifestation of +surprise, hailed him as he still crouched in his lurking-place. “Hello, +stranger! Warn't that you-uns runnin' arter the wagon a piece back +yonder jes a while ago?” + +The officer rose to his feet, with an intent look both dismayed and +embarrassed. He did not venture on speech; he merely acceded with a nod. + +“Ye want a lift, I reckon.” + +The stranger was hampered by the incongruity between his rustic garb, +common to the coves, and his cultivated intonation; for, unlike his +comrade Browdie, he had no mimetic faculties whatever. Nevertheless, he +was now constrained to “face the music.” + +“I didn't want to interrupt you,” he said, seeking such excuse as due +consideration for the circumstances might afford; “but I'd like to ask +where I could get lodging for the night.” + +“What's yer name?” demanded Barker, unceremoniously. + +“Francis Bonan,” the raider replied, with more assurance. Then he added, +by way of explaining his necessity, “I'm a stranger hereabouts.” + +“Ye air so,” assented the sarcastic 'Gene. “Ye ain't even acquainted +with yer own clothes. Ye be a town man.” + +“Well, I'm not the first man who has had to hide out,” Ronan parried, +seeking to justify his obvious disguise. + +“Shot somebody?” asked 'Gene, with an apparent accession of interest. + +“It's best for me not to tell.” + +“So be.” 'Gene acquiesced easily. “Waal, ef ye kin put up with sech +accommodations ez our'n, I'll take ye home with me.” + +Ronan stood aghast. But there was no door of retreat open. He was alone +and helpless. He could not conceal the fact that the turn affairs had +taken was equally unexpected and terrifying to him, and the moonshiners, +keenly watchful, were correspondingly elated to discern that he had +surely no reinforcements within reach to nerve him to resistance or +to menace their liberty. He had evidently followed them too far, too +recklessly; perhaps without the consent and against the counsel of his +comrades, perhaps even without their knowledge of his movements and +intention. + +Now and again as the wagon jogged on and on toward their distant haven, +the moonlight gradually dulling to dawn, Wyatt gave the stranger +a wondering, covert glance, vaguely, shrinkingly curious as to the +sentiments of a man vacillating between the suspicion of capture and the +recognition of a simple hospitality without significance or danger. The +man's face appealed to him, young, alert, intelligent, earnest, and +the anguish of doubt and anxiety it expressed went to his heart. In the +experience of his sylvan life as a hunter Wyatt's peculiar and subtle +temperament evolved certain fine-spun distinctions which were unique; a +trapped thing had a special appeal to his commiseration that a creature +ruthlessly slaughtered in the open was not privileged to claim. He did +not accurately and in words discriminate the differences, but he felt +that the captive had sounded all the gamut of hope and despair, shared +the gradations of an appreciated sorrow that makes all souls akin and +that even lifts the beast to the plane of brotherhood, the bond of +emotional woe. He had often with no other or better reason liberated +the trophy of his snare, calling after the amazed and franticly +fleeing creature, “Bye-bye, Buddy!” with peals of his whimsical, joyous +laughter. + +He was experiencing now a similar sequence of sentiments in noting the +wild-eyed eagerness with which the captured raider took obvious heed of +every minor point of worthiness that might mask the true character of +his entertainers. But, indeed, these deceptive hopes might have been +easily maintained by one not so desirous of reassurance when, in the +darkest hour before the dawn, they reached a large log-cabin sequestered +in dense woods, and he found himself an inmate of a simple, typical +mountain household. It held an exceedingly venerable grandfather, +wielding his infirmities as a rod of iron; a father and mother, hearty, +hospitable, subservient to the aged tyrant, but keeping in filial check +a family of sons and daughters-in-law, with an underfoot delegation of +grandchildren, who seemed to spend their time in a bewildering manouver +of dashing out at one door to dash in at another. A tumultuous rain +had set in shortly after dawn, with lightning and wind,--“the tail of a +harricane,” as the host called it,--and a terrible bird the actual storm +must have been to have a tail of such dimensions. There was no getting +forth, no living creature of free will “took water” in this elemental +crisis. The numerous dogs crowded the children away from the hearth, +and the hens strolled about the large living-room, clucking to scurrying +broods. Even one of the horses tramped up on the porch and looked in +ever and anon, solicitous of human company. + +“I brung Ben up by hand, like a bottle-fed baby,” the hostess +apologized, “an' he ain't never fund out fur sure that he ain't folks.” + +There seemed no possible intimation of moonshine in this entourage, and +the coffin filled with jugs, a-wagoning from some distillers' den in the +range to the cross-roads' store, might well have been accounted only the +vain phantasm of an overtired brain surcharged with the vexed problems +of the revenue service. The disguised revenue-raider was literally +overcome with drowsiness, the result of his exertions and his vigils, +and observing this, his host gave him one of the big feather beds under +the low slant of the eaves in the roof-room, where the other men, who +had been out all night, also slept the greater portion of the day. In +fact, it was dark when Wyatt wakened, and, leaving the rest still torpid +with slumber and fatigue, descended to the large main room of the cabin. + +The callow members of the household had retired to rest, but the elders +of the band of moonshiners were up and still actively astir, and Wyatt +experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or +secrecy--the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of +apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. +When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean +air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous +odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most +unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly +immune to suspicion, for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary +mountain cabin. Thus the infraction of the revenue law went on securely +and continuously beneath the placid, simple, domestic life, with its +reverent care for the very aged and its tender nurture of the very +young. + +It was significant, indeed, that the industry should not be +pretermitted, however, when a stranger was within the gates. The reason +to Wyatt, familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought, +was only too plain. They intended that the “revenuer” should never go +forth to tell the tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow +his trail, either losing it in the wilderness or from ignorance of +his intention. He had put himself hopelessly into the power of +these desperate men, whom his escape or liberation would menace +with incarceration for a long term as Federal prisoners in distant +penitentiaries, if, indeed, they were not already answerable to the law +for some worse crime than illicit distilling. His murder would be the +extreme of brutal craft, so devised as to seem an accident, against the +possibility of future investigation. + +The reflection turned Wyatt deathly cold, he who could not bear unmoved +the plea of a wild thing's eye. He sturdily sought to pull himself +together. It was none of his decree; it was none of his deed, he argued. +The older moonshiners, who managed all the details of the enterprise, +would direct the event with absolute authority and the immutability of +fate. But whatever should be done, he revolted from any knowledge of +it, as from any share in the act. He had risen to leave the place, all +strange of aspect now, metamorphosed,--various disorderly details of +the prohibited industry ever and anon surging up from the still-room +below,--when a hoarse voice took cognizance of his intention with a +remonstrance. + +“Why, Watt Wyatt, _ye_ can't go out in the cove. Ye air dead! Ye will +let that t'other revenue-raider ye seen into the secret o' the bresh +whisky in our wagon ef ye air viewed about whenst 'Gene hev spread the +report that ye air dead. Wait till them raiders hev cleared out of the +kentry.” + +The effort at detention, to interfere with his liberty, added redoubled +impetus to Wyatt 's desire to be gone. He suddenly devised a cogent +necessity. “I be feared my dad mought hear that fool tale. I ain't much +loss, but dad would feel it.” + +“Oh, I sent Jack thar ter tell him better whenst he drove ter mill +ter-day ter git the meal fer the mash. Jack made yer dad understand +'bout yer sudden demise.” + +“Oh, yeh,” interposed the glib Jack; “an' he said ez _he_ couldn't abide +sech jokes.” + +“Shucks!” cried the filial Wyatt. “Dad war full fresky himself in his +young days; I hev hearn his old frien's say so.” + +“I tried ter slick things over,” said the diplomatic Jack. “I 'lowed +young folks war giddy by nature. I 'lowed 't war jes a flash o' fun. +An' he say: 'Flash o' fun be con-sarned! My son is more like a flash o' +lightning; ez suddint an' mischeevious an' totally ondesirable.'” + +The reproach obviously struck home, for Wyatt maintained a disconsolate +silence for a time. At length, apparently goaded by his thoughts to +attempt a defense, he remonstrated: + +“Nobody ever war dead less of his own free will. I never elected ter +be a harnt. 'Gene Barker hed no right ter nominate _me_ fer the dear +departed, nohow.” + +One of the uncouth younger fellows, his shoulders laden with a sack of +meal, paused on his way from the porch to the trap-door to look up from +beneath his burden with a sly grin as he said, “'Gene war wishin' it war +true, that's why.” + +“'Count o' Minta Elladine Riggs,” gaily chimed in another. + +“But 'Gene needn't gredge Watt foothold on this yearth fer sech; _she_ +ain't keerin' whether Watt lives or dies,” another contributed to the +rough, rallying fun. + +But Wyatt was of sensitive fibre. He had flushed angrily; his eyes were +alight; a bitter retort was trembling on his lips when one of the elder +Barkers, discriminating the elements of an uncontrollable fracas, seized +on the alternative. + +“Could you-uns _sure_ be back hyar by daybreak, Watt!” he asked, fixing +the young fellow with a stern eye. + +“No 'spectable ghost roams around arter sun-up,” cried Wyatt, fairly +jovial at the prospect of liberation. + +“Ye mus' be heedful not ter be viewed,” the senior admonished him. + +“I be goin' ter slip about keerful like a reg'lar, stiddy-goin' harnt, +an' eavesdrop a bit. It's worth livin' a hard life ter view how a +feller's friends will take his demise.” + +“I reckon ye kin make out ter meet the wagin kemin' back from the +cross-roads' store. It went out this evenin' with that coffin full of +jugs that ye lef' las' night under the church-house, whenst 'Gene seen +you-uns war suspicioned. They will hev time ter git ter the cross-roads +with the whisky on' back little arter midnight, special' ez we-uns hev +got the raider that spied out the job hyar fast by the leg.” + +The mere mention of the young prisoner rendered Wyatt the more eager +to be gone, to be out of sight and sound. But he had no agency in +the disaster, he urged against some inward clamor of protest; the +catastrophe was the logical result of the fool-hardiness of the officer +in following these desperate men with no backing, with no power +to apprehend or hold, relying on his flimsy disguise, and risking +delivering himself into their hands, fettered as he was with the +knowledge of his discovery of their secret. + +“It's nothin' ter _me_, nohow,” Wyatt was continually repeating to +himself, though when he sprang through the door he could scarcely draw +his breath because of some mysterious, invisible clutch at his throat. + +He sought to ascribe this symptom to the density of the pervasive fog +without, that impenetrably cloaked all the world; one might wonder how a +man could find his way through the opaque white vapor. It was, however, +an accustomed medium to the young mountaineer, and his feet, too, had +something of that unclassified muscular instinct, apart from reason, +which guides in an oft-trodden path. Once he came to a halt, from no +uncertainty of locality, but to gaze apprehensively through the blank, +white mists over a shuddering shoulder. “I wonder ef thar be any other +harnts aloose ter-night, a-boguing through the fog an' the moon,” he +speculated. Presently he went on again, shaking his head sagely. “I +ain't wantin' ter collogue with sech,” he averred cautiously. + +Occasionally the moonlight fell in expansive splendor through a rift in +the white vapor; amidst the silver glintings a vague, illusory panorama +of promontory and island, bay and inlet, far ripplings of gleaming +deeps, was presented like some magic reminiscence, some ethereal replica +of the past, the simulacrum of the seas of these ancient coves, long +since ebbed away and vanished. + +The sailing moon visibly rocked, as the pulsing tides of the cloud-ocean +rose and fell, and ever and anon this supernal craft was whelmed in +its surgings, and once more came majestically into view, freighted with +fancies and heading for the haven of the purple western shores. + +In one of these clearances of the mists a light of an alien type caught +the eye of the wandering spectre--a light, red, mundane, of prosaic +suggestion. It filtered through the crevice of a small batten shutter. + +The ghost paused, his head speculatively askew. “Who sits so late at the +forge!” he marvelled, for he was now near the base of the mountain, and +he recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its roof +aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As +he neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a +deep, gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words +made the matter plain. + +“High, Low, Jack, _and_ game! Fork! Fork!” Once more there arose a high +falsetto shriek of jubilant laughter. + +Walter Wyatt crept noiselessly down the steep slant toward the shutter. +He had no sense of intrusion, for he was often one of the merry blades +wont to congregate at the forge at night and take a hand at cards, +despite the adverse sentiment of the cove and the vigilance of the +constable of the district, bent on enforcing the laws prohibiting +gaming. As Wyatt stood at the crevice of the shutter the whole interior +was distinct before him--the disabled wagon-wheels against the walls, +the horse-shoes on a rod across the window, the great hood of the forge, +the silent bellows, with its long, motionless handle. A kerosene lamp, +perched on the elevated hearth of the forge, illumined the group of wild +young mountaineers clustered about a barrel on the head of which the +cards were dealt. There were no chairs; one of the gamesters sat on a +keg of nails; another on an inverted splint basket; two on a rude bench +that was wont to be placed outside the door for the accommodation +of customers waiting for a horse to be shod or a plow to be laid. An +onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his ambition of admission +to the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this coign of vantage +beheld all the outspread landscape of the “hands.” More than once his +indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his survey of the +cards menaced him with a broken head. More innocuous to the interests of +the play was a wight humbly ensconced on the shoeing-stool, which +barely brought his head to the level of the board; but as he was densely +ignorant of the game, he took no disadvantage from his lowly posture. +His head was red, and as it moved erratically about in the gloom, +Watt Wyatt thought for a moment that it was the smith's red setter. He +grinned as he resolved that some day he would tell the fellow this as +a pleasing gibe; but the thought was arrested by the sound of his own +name. + +“Waal, sir,” said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, “I s'pose +ye hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's takin' off.” + +“An' none too soon, sartain.” A sour visage was glimpsed beneath the +wide brim of the speaker's hat. + +“Waal,” drawled the semblance of the setter from deep in the +clare-obscure, “Watt war jes a fool from lack o' sense.” + +“That kind o' fool can't be cured,” said another of the players. Then +he sharply adjuxed the dealer. “Look out what ye be doin'! Ye hev gimme +_two_ kyerds.” + +“'Gene Barker will git ter marry Minta Elladine Biggs now, I reckon,” + suggested the man on the anvil. + +“An' I'll dance at the weddin' with right good will an' a nimble toe,” + declared the dealer, vivaciously. “I'll be glad ter see that couple +settled. That gal couldn't make up her mind ter let Walter Wyatt go, an' +yit no woman in her senses would hev been willin, ter marry him. He war +ez unresponsible ez--ez--fox-fire.” + +“An' ez onstiddy ez a harricane,” commented another. + +“An' no more account than a mole in the yearth,” said a third. + +The ghost at the window listened in aghast dismay and became pale in +sober truth, for these boon companions he had accounted the best friends +he had in the world. They had no word of regret, no simple human pity; +even that facile meed of casual praise that he was “powerful pleasant +company” was withheld. And for these and such as these he had bartered +the esteem of the community at large and his filial duty and obedience; +had spurned the claims of good citizenship and placed himself in +jeopardy of the law; had forfeited the hand of the woman he loved. + +“Minta Elladine Biggs ain't keerin' nohow fer sech ez Watt,” said the +semblance of the setter, with a knowing nod of his red head. “I war up +thar at the mill whenst the news kem ter-day, an' she war thar ter git +some seconds. I hev hearn women go off in high-strikes fer a lovyer's +death--even Mis' Simton, though hern was jes her husband, an 'a mighty +pore one at that. But Minta Elladine jes listened quiet an' composed, +an' never said one word.” + +The batten shutter was trembling in the ghost's hand. In fact, so +convulsive was his grasp that it shook the hook from the staple, and the +shutter slowly opened as he stood at gaze. + +Perhaps it was the motion that attracted the attention of the dealer, +perhaps the influx of a current of fresh air. He lifted his casual +glance and beheld, distinct in the light from the kerosene lamp +and imposed on the white background of the mist, that familiar and +individual face, pallid, fixed, strange, with an expression that he had +never seen it wear hitherto. One moment of suspended faculties, and he +sprang up with a wild cry that filled the little shanty with its shrill +terror. The others gazed astounded upon him, then followed the direction +of his starting eyes, and echoed his frantic fright. There was a wild +scurry toward the door. The overturning of the lamp was imminent, but +it still burned calmly on the elevated hearth, while the shoeing-stool +capsized in the rush, and the red head of its lowly occupant was lowlier +still, rolling on the dirt floor. Even with this disadvantage, however, +he was not the hindmost, and reached the exit unhurt. The only specific +damage wrought by the panic was to the big barnlike doors of the place. +They had been stanchly barred against the possible intrusion of +the constable of the district, and the fastenings in so critical an +emergency could not be readily loosed. The united weight and impetus of +the onset burst the flimsy doors into fragments, and as the party fled +in devious directions in the misty moonlight, the calm radiance entered +at the wide-spread portal and illuminated the vacant place where late +had been so merry a crew. + +Walter Wyatt had known the time when the incident would have held an +incomparable relish for him. But now he gazed all forlorn into the empty +building with a single thought in his mind. “Not one of 'em keered a +mite! Nare good word, nare sigh, not even, 'Fare ye well, old mate!'” + +His breast heaved, his eyes flashed. + +“An' I hev loant money ter Jim, whenst I hed need myself; an' holped +George in the mill, when his wrist war sprained, without a cent o' pay; +an' took the blame when 'Dolphus war faulted by his dad fur lamin' the +horse-critter; an' stood back an' let Pete git the meat whenst we-uns +shot fur beef, bein' he hev got a wife an' chil'ren ter feed. All +_leetle_ favors, but nare _leetle_ word.” + +He had turned from the window and was tramping absently down the road, +all unmindful of the skulking methods of the spectral gentry. If he had +chanced to be observed, his little farce, that had yet an element of +tragedy in its presentation, must soon have reached its close. But +the fog hung about him like a cloak, and when the moon cast aside the +vapors, it was in a distant silver sheen illumining the far reaches of +the valley. Only when its light summoned forth a brilliant and glancing +reflection on a lower level, as if a thousand sabers were unsheathed at +a word, he recognized the proximity of the river and came to a sudden +halt. + +“Whar is this fool goin'?” he demanded angrily of space. “To the +graveyard, I declar', ez ef I war a harnt fur true, an' buried sure +enough. An' I wish I war. I wish I war.” + +He realized, after a moment's consideration, that he had been +unconsciously actuated by the chance of meeting the wagon, returning by +this route from the cross-roads' store. He was tired, disheartened; his +spirit was spent; he would be glad of the lift. He reflected, +however, that he must needs wait some time, for this was the date of a +revival-meeting at the little church, and the distillers' wagon would +lag, that its belated night journey might not be subjected to the +scrutiny and comment of the church-goers. Indeed, even now Walter Wyatt +saw in the distance the glimmer of a lantern, intimating homeward-bound +worshipers not yet out of sight. + +“The saints kep' it up late ter-night,” he commented. + +He resolved to wait till the roll of wheels should tell of the return of +the moonshiners' empty wagon. + +He crossed the river on the little footbridge and took his way languidly +along the road toward the deserted church. He was close to the hedge +that grew thick and rank about the little inclosure when he suddenly +heard the sound of lamentation from within. He drew back precipitately, +with a sense of sacrilege, but the branches of the unpruned growth had +caught in his sleeve, and he sought to disengage the cloth without such +rustling stir as might disturb or alarm the mourner, who had evidently +lingered here, after the dispersal of the congregation, for a moment's +indulgence of grief and despair. He had a glimpse through the shaking +boughs and the flickering mist of a woman's figure kneeling on the +crude red clods of a new-made grave. A vague, anxious wonder as to the +deceased visited him, for in the sparsely settled districts a strong +community sense prevails. Suddenly in a choking gust of sobs and burst +of tears he recognized his own name in a voice of which every inflection +was familiar. For a moment his heart seemed to stand still. His brain +whirled with a realization of this unforeseen result of the fantastic +story of his death in Eskaqua Cove, which the moonshiners, on the verge +of detection and arrest, had circulated in Tanglefoot as a measure of +safety. They had fancied that when the truth was developed it would be +easy enough to declare the men drunk or mistaken. The “revenuers” by +that time would be far away, and the pervasive security, always the +sequence of a raid, successful or otherwise, would once more promote +the manufacture of the brush whisky. The managers of the moon-shining +interest had taken measures to guard Wyatt's aged father from this +fantasy of woe, but they had not dreamed that the mountain coquette +might care. He himself stood appalled that this ghastly fable should +delude his heart's beloved, amazed that it should cost her one sigh, +one sob. Her racking paroxysms of grief over this gruesome figment of a +grave he was humiliated to hear, he was woeful to see. He felt that he +was not worth one tear of the floods with which she bewept his name, +uttered in every cadence of tender regret that her melancholy voice +could compass. It must cease, she must know the truth at whatever cost. +He broke through the hedge and stood in the flicker of the moonlight +before her, pale, agitated, all unlike his wonted self. + +She did not hear, amid the tumult of her weeping, the rustling of the +boughs, but some subtle sense took cognizance of his presence. She half +rose, and with one hand holding back her dense yellow hair, which +had fallen forward on her forehead, she looked up at him fearfully, +tremulously, with all the revolt of the corporeal creature for the +essence of the mysterious incorporeal. For a moment he could not speak. +So much he must needs explain. The next instant he was whelmed in the +avalanche of her words. + +“Te hev kem!” she exclaimed in a sort of shrill ecstasy. “Te hev kem so +far ter hear the word that I would give my life ter hev said before. Te +knowed it in heaven! an' how like ye ter kem ter gin me the chanst ter +say it at last! How like the good heart of ye, worth all the hearts on +yearth--an' _buried hyar!_” + +With her open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of +despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. “I +love ye! Oh, I _always_ loved ye! I never keered fur nobody else! an' I +war tongue-tied, an' full of fool pride, an' faultin' ye fur yer ways; +an' I wouldn't gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin' ter hear. But now +I kin tell the pore ghost of ye--I kin tell the pore, pore ghost!” + +She buried her swollen, tear-stained face in her hands, and shook her +head to and fro with the realization of the futility of late repentance. +As she once more lifted her eyes, she was obviously surprised to see +him still standing there, and the crisis seemed to restore to him the +faculty of speech. + +“Minta Elladine,” he said huskily and prosaically, “I ain't dead!” + +She sprang to her feet and stood gazing at him, intent and quivering. + +“I be truly alive an' kicking an' ez worthless ez ever,” he went on. + +She said not a word, but bent and pallid, and, quaking in every muscle, +stood peering beneath her hand, which still held back her hair. + +“It's all a mistake,” he urged. “This ain't no grave. The top war dug a +leetle ter turn off a revenuer's suspicions o' the moonshiners. They put +that tale out.” + +Still, evidently on the verge of collapse, she did not speak. + +“Ye needn't be afeared ez I be goin' ter take fur true all I hearn +ye say; folks air gin ter vauntin' the dead,” he paused for a moment, +remembering the caustic comments over the deal of the cards, then added, +“though I reckon _I_ hev hed some cur'ous 'speriences ez a harnt.” + +She suddenly threw up both arms with a shrill scream, half nervous +exhaustion, half inexpressible delight. She swayed to and fro, almost +fainting, her balance failing. He caught her in his arms, and she leaned +sobbing against his breast. + +“I stand ter every word of it,” she cried, her voice broken and lapsed +from control. “I love ye, an' I despise all the rest!” + +“I be powerful wild,” he suggested contritely. + +“I ain't keerin' ef ye be ez wild ez a deer.” + +“But I'm goin' to quit gamesome company an' playin' kyerds an' sech. I +expec' ter mend my ways now,” he promised eagerly. + +“Ye kin mend 'em or let 'em stay tore, jes ez ye please,” she declared +recklessly. “I ain't snatched my lovyer from the jaws o' death ter want +him otherwise; ye be plumb true-hearted, _I know_.” + +“I mought ez well hev been buried in this grave fer the last ten year' +fer all the use I hev been,” he protested solemnly; “but I hev learnt +a lesson through bein' a harnt fer a while--I hev jes kem ter life. I'm +goin' ter _live_ now. I'll make myself some use in the world, an' fust +off I be goin' ter hinder the murder of a man what they hev got trapped +up yander at the still.” + +This initial devoir of his reformation, however, Wyatt found no easy +matter. The event had been craftily planned to seem an accident, a fall +from a cliff in pursuing the wagon, and only the most ardent and +cogent urgency on Wyatt's part prevailed at length. He argued that this +interpretation of the disaster would not satisfy the authorities. To +take the raider's life insured discovery, retribution. But as he had +been brought to the still in the night, it was obvious that if he +were conveyed under cover of darkness and by roundabout trails within +striking distance of the settlements, he could never again find his +way to the locality in the dense wilderness. In his detention he had +necessarily learned nothing fresh, for the only names he could have +overheard had long been obnoxious to suspicion of moonshining, and +afforded no proof. Thus humanity, masquerading as caution, finally +triumphed, and the officer, blindfolded, was conducted through devious +and winding ways many miles distant, and released within a day's travel +of the county town. + +Walter Wyatt was scarcely welcomed back to life by the denizens of the +cove generally with the enthusiasm attendant on the first moments of his +resuscitation, so to speak. He never forgot the solemn ecstasy of +that experience, and in later years he was wont to annul any menace of +discord with his wife by the warning, half jocose, half tender: “Ye hed +better mind; ye'll be sorry some day fur treatin' me so mean. Remember, +I hev viewed ye a-weepin' over my grave before now.” + +A reformation, however complete and salutary, works no change of +identity, and although he developed into an orderly, industrious, +law-abiding citizen, his prankish temperament remained recognizable +in the fantastic fables which he delighted to recount at some genial +fireside of what he had seen and heard as a ghost. + +“Pears like, Watt, ye hed more experiences whenst dead than living” said +an auditor, as these stories multiplied. + +“I did, fur a fack,” Watt protested. “I war a powerful onchancy, onquiet +ghost. I even did my courtin' whilst in my reg'lar line o' business +a-hanatin' a graveyard.” + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Unquiet Ghost, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + +***** This file should be named 23556-0.txt or 23556-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23556/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/23556-0.zip b/23556-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..16b3a05 --- /dev/null +++ b/23556-0.zip diff --git a/23556-8.txt b/23556-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5431324 --- /dev/null +++ b/23556-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1240 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Unquiet Ghost, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: His Unquiet Ghost + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23556] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +HIS UNQUIET GHOST + +By Charles Egbert Craddock + +1911 + + +The moon was high in the sky. The wind was laid. So silent was the vast +stretch of mountain wilderness, aglint with the dew, that the tinkle of +a rill far below in the black abyss seemed less a sound than an evidence +of the pervasive quietude, since so slight a thing, so distant, could +compass so keen a vibration. For an hour or more the three men who +lurked in the shadow of a crag in the narrow mountain-pass, heard +nothing else. When at last they caught the dull reverberation of a slow +wheel and the occasional metallic clank of a tire against a stone, the +vehicle was fully three miles distant by the winding road in the valley. +Time lagged. Only by imperceptible degrees the sound of deliberate +approach grew louder on the air as the interval of space lessened. At +length, above their ambush at the summit of the mountain's brow the +heads of horses came into view, distinct in the moonlight between the +fibrous pines and the vast expanse of the sky above the valley. Even +then there was renewed delay. The driver of the wagon paused to rest the +team. + +The three lurking men did not move; they scarcely ventured to breathe. +Only when there was no retrograde possible, no chance of escape, when +the vehicle was fairly on the steep declivity of the road, the precipice +sheer on one side, the wall of the ridge rising perpendicularly on the +other, did two of them, both revenue-raiders disguised as mountaineers, +step forth from the shadow. The other, the informer, a genuine +mountaineer, still skulked motionless in the darkness. The "revenuers," +ascending the road, maintained a slow, lunging gait, as if they had +toiled from far. + +Their abrupt appearance had the effect of a galvanic shock to the man +handling the reins, a stalwart, rubicund fellow, who visibly paled. He +drew up so suddenly as almost to throw the horses from their feet. + +"G'evenin'," ventured Browdie, the elder of the raiders, in a husky +voice affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a +mimic, and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people, +this gift greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed. +"Ye're haulin' late," he added, for the hour was close to midnight. + +"Yes, stranger; haulin' late, from Eskaqua--a needcessity." + +"What's yer cargo?" asked Browdie, seeming only ordinarily inquisitive. + +A sepulchral cadence was in the driver's voice, and the disguised +raiders noted that the three other men on the wagon had preserved, +throughout, a solemn silence. "What we-uns mus' all be one day, +stranger--a corpus." + +Browdie was stultified for a moment Then, sustaining his assumed +character, he said: "I hope it be nobody I know. I be fairly well +acquainted in Eskaqua, though I hail from down in Lonesome Cove. Who be +dead!" + +There was palpably a moment's hesitation before the spokesman replied: +"Watt Wyatt; died day 'fore yestiddy." + +At the words, one of the silent men in the wagon turned his face +suddenly, with such obvious amazement depicted upon it that it arrested +the attention of the "rev-enuers." This face was so individual that it +was not likely to be easily mistaken or forgotten. A wild, breezy look +it had, and a tricksy, incorporeal expression that might well befit +some fantastic, fabled thing of the woods. It was full of fine script of +elusive meanings, not registered in the lineaments of the prosaic man +of the day, though perchance of scant utility, not worth interpretation. +His full gray eyes were touched to glancing brilliancy by a moonbeam; +his long, fibrously floating brown hair was thrown backward; his +receding chin was peculiarly delicate; and though his well-knit frame +bespoke a hardy vigor, his pale cheek was soft and thin. All the rustic +grotesquery of garb and posture was cancelled by the deep shadow of a +bough, and his delicate face showed isolated in the moonlight. + +Browdie silently pondered his vague suspicions for a moment "Whar did he +die at?" he then demanded at a venture. + +"At his daddy's house, fur sure. Whar else?" responded the driver. "I +hev got what's lef' of him hyar in the coffin-box. We expected ter make +it ter Shiloh buryin'-ground 'fore dark; but the road is middlin' heavy, +an' 'bout five mile' back Ben cast a shoe. The funeral warn't over much +'fore noon." + +"Whyn't they bury him in Eskaqua, whar he died!" persisted Browdie. + +"Waal, they planned ter bury him alongside his mother an' gran'dad, what +used ter live in Tanglefoot Cove. But we air wastin' time hyar, an' we +hev got none ter spare. Gee, Ben! Git up, John!" + +The wagon gave a lurch; the horses, holding back in bracing attitudes +far from the pole, went teetering down the steep slant, the locked wheel +dragging heavily; the four men sat silent, two in slouching postures at +the head of the coffin; the third, with the driver, was at its foot. It +seemed drearily suggestive, the last journey of this humble mortality, +in all the splendid environment of the mountains, under the vast +expansions of the aloof skies, in the mystic light of the unnoting moon. + +"Is this bona-fide?" asked Browdie, with a questioning glance at the +informer, who had at length crept forth. + +"I dunno," sullenly responded the mountaineer. He had acquainted the +two officers, who were of a posse of revenue-raiders hovering in the +vicinity, with the mysterious circumstance that a freighted wagon now +and then made a midnight transit across these lonely ranges. He himself +had heard only occasionally in a wakeful hour the roll of heavy wheels, +but he interpreted this as the secret transportation of brush whisky +from the still to its market. He had thought to fix the transgression +on an old enemy of his own, long suspected of moonshining; but he was +acquainted with none of the youngsters on the wagon, at whom he had +peered cautiously from behind the rocks. His actuating motive in giving +information to the emissaries of the government had been the rancor of +an old feud, and his detection meant certain death. He had not expected +the revenue-raiders to be outnumbered by the supposed moonshiners, and +he would not fight in the open. He had no sentiment of fealty to the +law, and the officers glanced at each other in uncertainty. + +"This evidently is not the wagon in question," said Browdie, +disappointed. + +"I'll follow them a bit," volunteered Bonan, the younger and the more +active of the two officers. "Seems to me they'll bear watching." + +Indeed, as the melancholy cortge fared down and down the steep road, +dwindling in the sheeny distance, the covert and half-suppressed +laughter of the sepulchral escort was of so keen a relish that it was +well that the scraping of the locked wheel aided the distance to mask +the incongruous sound. + +"What ailed you-uns ter name _me_ as the corpus, 'Gene Barker?" demanded +Walter Wyatt, when he had regained the capacity of coherent speech. + +"Oh, I hed ter do suddint murder on somebody," declared the driver, all +bluff and reassured and red-faced again, "an' I couldn't think quick +of nobody else. Besides, I helt a grudge agin' you fer not stuffin' mo' +straw 'twixt them jimmyjohns in the coffin-box." + +"That's a fac'. Ye air too triflin' ter be let ter live, Watt," cried +one of their comrades. "I hearn them jugs clash tergether in the +coffin-box when 'Gene checked the team up suddint, I tell you. An' them +men sure 'peared ter me powerful suspectin'." + +"_I_ hearn the clash of them jimmyjohns," chimed in the driver. "I +really thunk my hour war come. Some informer must hev set them men ter +spyin' round fer moonshine." + +"Oh, surely nobody wouldn't dare," urged one of the group, uneasily; for +the identity of an informer was masked in secrecy, and his fate, when +discovered, was often gruesome. + +"They couldn't hev noticed the clash of them jimmyjohns, nohow," +declared the negligent Watt, nonchalantly. "But namin' _me_ fur the dead +one! Supposin' they air revenuers fur true, an' hed somebody along, hid +out in the bresh, ez war acquainted with me by sight----" + +"Then they'd hev been skeered out'n thar boots, that's all," interrupted +the self-sufficient 'Gene. "They would hev 'lowed they hed viewed +yer brazen ghost, bold ez brass, standin' at the head of yer own +coffin-box." + +"Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn't +acquainted with _me_," persisted Watt, with his unique sense of injury. + +Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. "They would hev +jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an' at-tendin' him ter his long +home." + +"'Gene don't keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt," one of +the others suggested tactlessly, "'count o' Minta Elladine Biggs." + +Eugene Barker's off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity +and his evident rancor as he declared: "_I_ ain't carin' fur sech ez +Watt Wyatt. An' they _do_ say in the cove that Minta Elladine Biggs hev +gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin' +kyerds, a-bet-tin' his money, drinkin' apple-jack, an' sech." + +The newly constituted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if +to retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes +widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he +pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of-the coffin was the +simulacrum of the figure of aman. + +One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned +a significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a +fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of +a more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence +could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted +his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an +indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at +that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box. + +The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed. +The number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at +least one of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the +precipice and the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had +gradually dwindled to a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and +there washed out by recent rains, and one of these indentations might +have afforded an active man access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had +evidently kept abreast of them, speeding along in great leaps through +the lush growth of huckleberry bushes, wild grasses, pawpaw thickets, +silvered by the moon, all fringing the great forests that had given way +on the shelving verge of the steeps where the road ran. Had he overheard +their unguarded, significant words? Who could divine, so silent were the +windless mountains, so deep a-dream the darksome woods, so spellbound +the mute and mystic moonlight? + +The group maintained a cautious reticence now, each revolving the +problematic disclosure of their secret, each canvassing the question +whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy +proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they +venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in midstream and +stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, +as the team manifested an inclination to drink in transit; and thence, +as he stood thus perched, he gazed to and fro, the stretch of dark and +lustrous ripples baffling all approach within ear-shot, the watering +of the horses justifying the pause and cloaking its significance to any +distant observer. + +But the interval was indeed limited; the mental processes of such men +are devoid of complexity, and their decisions prompt. They advanced few +alternatives; their prime object was to be swiftly rid of the coffin +and its inculpating contents, and with the "revenuer" so hard on their +heels this might seem a troublous problem enough. + +"Put it whar a coffin b'longs--in the churchyard," said Wyatt; for at a +considerable distance beyond the rise of the opposite bank could be +seen a barren clearing in which stood a gaunt, bare, little white frame +building that served all the country-side for its infrequent religious +services. + +"We couldn't dig a grave before that spy--ef he be a revenuer sure +enough--could overhaul us," Eugene Barker objected. + +"We could turn the yearth right smart, though," persisted Wyatt, for +pickax and shovel had been brought in the wagon for the sake of an +aspect of verisimilitude and to mask their true intent. + +Eugene Barker acceded to this view. "That's the dinctum--dig a few jes +fer a blind. We kin slip the coffin-box under the church-house 'fore he +gits in sight,--he'll be feared ter follow too close,--an' leave it thar +till the other boys kin wagon it ter the cross-roads' store ter-morrer +night." + +The horses, hitherto held to the sober gait of funeral travel, were now +put to a speedy trot, unmindful of whatever impression of flight the +pace might give to the revenue-raider in pursuit. The men were soon +engrossed in their deceptive enterprise in the churchyard, plying pickax +and shovel for dear life; now and again they paused to listen vainly +for the sound of stealthy approach. They knew that there was the most +precarious and primitive of foot-bridges across the deep stream, to +traverse which would cost an unaccustomed wayfarer both time and +pains; thus the interval was considerable before the resonance of rapid +footfalls gave token that their pursuer had found himself obliged to +sprint smartly along the country road to keep any hope of ever again' +viewing the wagon which the intervening water-course had withdrawn +from his sight. That this hope had grown tenuous was evident in his +relinquishment of his former caution, for when they again caught a +glimpse of him he was forging along in the middle of the road without +any effort at concealment. But as the wagon appeared in the perspective, +stationary, hitched to the hedge of the graveyard, he recurred to his +previous methods. The four men still within the in-closure, now busied +in shovelling the earth back again into the excavation they had so +swiftly made, covertly watched him as he skulked into the shadow of the +wayside. The little "church-house," with all its windows whitely aglare +in the moonlight, reflected the pervasive sheen, and silent, spectral, +remote, it seemed as if it might well harbor at times its ghastly +neighbors from the quiet cemetery without, dimly ranging themselves once +more in the shadowy ranks of its pews or grimly stalking down the drear +and deserted aisles. The fact that the rising ground toward the rear of +the building necessitated a series of steps at the entrance, enabled the +officer to mask behind this tall flight his crouching approach, and thus +he ensconced himself in the angle between the wall and the steps, and +looked forth in fancied security. + +The shadows multiplied the tale of the dead that the head-boards kept, +each similitude askew in the moonlight on the turf below the slanting +monument To judge by the motions of the men engaged in the burial and +the mocking antics of their silhouettes on the ground, it must have been +obvious to the spectator that they were already filling in the earth. +The interment may have seemed to him suspiciously swift, but the +possibility was obvious that the grave might have been previously dug +in anticipation of their arrival. It was plain that he was altogether +unprepared for the event when they came slouching forth to the wagon, +and the stalwart and red-faced driver, with no manifestation of +surprise, hailed him as he still crouched in his lurking-place. "Hello, +stranger! Warn't that you-uns runnin' arter the wagon a piece back +yonder jes a while ago?" + +The officer rose to his feet, with an intent look both dismayed and +embarrassed. He did not venture on speech; he merely acceded with a nod. + +"Ye want a lift, I reckon." + +The stranger was hampered by the incongruity between his rustic garb, +common to the coves, and his cultivated intonation; for, unlike his +comrade Browdie, he had no mimetic faculties whatever. Nevertheless, he +was now constrained to "face the music." + +"I didn't want to interrupt you," he said, seeking such excuse as due +consideration for the circumstances might afford; "but I'd like to ask +where I could get lodging for the night." + +"What's yer name?" demanded Barker, unceremoniously. + +"Francis Bonan," the raider replied, with more assurance. Then he added, +by way of explaining his necessity, "I'm a stranger hereabouts." + +"Ye air so," assented the sarcastic 'Gene. "Ye ain't even acquainted +with yer own clothes. Ye be a town man." + +"Well, I'm not the first man who has had to hide out," Ronan parried, +seeking to justify his obvious disguise. + +"Shot somebody?" asked 'Gene, with an apparent accession of interest. + +"It's best for me not to tell." + +"So be." 'Gene acquiesced easily. "Waal, ef ye kin put up with sech +accommodations ez our'n, I'll take ye home with me." + +Ronan stood aghast. But there was no door of retreat open. He was alone +and helpless. He could not conceal the fact that the turn affairs had +taken was equally unexpected and terrifying to him, and the moonshiners, +keenly watchful, were correspondingly elated to discern that he had +surely no reinforcements within reach to nerve him to resistance or +to menace their liberty. He had evidently followed them too far, too +recklessly; perhaps without the consent and against the counsel of his +comrades, perhaps even without their knowledge of his movements and +intention. + +Now and again as the wagon jogged on and on toward their distant haven, +the moonlight gradually dulling to dawn, Wyatt gave the stranger +a wondering, covert glance, vaguely, shrinkingly curious as to the +sentiments of a man vacillating between the suspicion of capture and the +recognition of a simple hospitality without significance or danger. The +man's face appealed to him, young, alert, intelligent, earnest, and +the anguish of doubt and anxiety it expressed went to his heart. In the +experience of his sylvan life as a hunter Wyatt's peculiar and subtle +temperament evolved certain fine-spun distinctions which were unique; a +trapped thing had a special appeal to his commiseration that a creature +ruthlessly slaughtered in the open was not privileged to claim. He did +not accurately and in words discriminate the differences, but he felt +that the captive had sounded all the gamut of hope and despair, shared +the gradations of an appreciated sorrow that makes all souls akin and +that even lifts the beast to the plane of brotherhood, the bond of +emotional woe. He had often with no other or better reason liberated +the trophy of his snare, calling after the amazed and franticly +fleeing creature, "Bye-bye, Buddy!" with peals of his whimsical, joyous +laughter. + +He was experiencing now a similar sequence of sentiments in noting the +wild-eyed eagerness with which the captured raider took obvious heed of +every minor point of worthiness that might mask the true character of +his entertainers. But, indeed, these deceptive hopes might have been +easily maintained by one not so desirous of reassurance when, in the +darkest hour before the dawn, they reached a large log-cabin sequestered +in dense woods, and he found himself an inmate of a simple, typical +mountain household. It held an exceedingly venerable grandfather, +wielding his infirmities as a rod of iron; a father and mother, hearty, +hospitable, subservient to the aged tyrant, but keeping in filial check +a family of sons and daughters-in-law, with an underfoot delegation of +grandchildren, who seemed to spend their time in a bewildering manouver +of dashing out at one door to dash in at another. A tumultuous rain +had set in shortly after dawn, with lightning and wind,--"the tail of a +harricane," as the host called it,--and a terrible bird the actual storm +must have been to have a tail of such dimensions. There was no getting +forth, no living creature of free will "took water" in this elemental +crisis. The numerous dogs crowded the children away from the hearth, +and the hens strolled about the large living-room, clucking to scurrying +broods. Even one of the horses tramped up on the porch and looked in +ever and anon, solicitous of human company. + +"I brung Ben up by hand, like a bottle-fed baby," the hostess +apologized, "an' he ain't never fund out fur sure that he ain't folks." + +There seemed no possible intimation of moonshine in this entourage, and +the coffin filled with jugs, a-wagoning from some distillers' den in the +range to the cross-roads' store, might well have been accounted only the +vain phantasm of an overtired brain surcharged with the vexed problems +of the revenue service. The disguised revenue-raider was literally +overcome with drowsiness, the result of his exertions and his vigils, +and observing this, his host gave him one of the big feather beds under +the low slant of the eaves in the roof-room, where the other men, who +had been out all night, also slept the greater portion of the day. In +fact, it was dark when Wyatt wakened, and, leaving the rest still torpid +with slumber and fatigue, descended to the large main room of the cabin. + +The callow members of the household had retired to rest, but the elders +of the band of moonshiners were up and still actively astir, and Wyatt +experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or +secrecy--the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of +apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. +When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean +air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous +odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most +unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly +immune to suspicion, for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary +mountain cabin. Thus the infraction of the revenue law went on securely +and continuously beneath the placid, simple, domestic life, with its +reverent care for the very aged and its tender nurture of the very +young. + +It was significant, indeed, that the industry should not be +pretermitted, however, when a stranger was within the gates. The reason +to Wyatt, familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought, +was only too plain. They intended that the "revenuer" should never go +forth to tell the tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow +his trail, either losing it in the wilderness or from ignorance of +his intention. He had put himself hopelessly into the power of +these desperate men, whom his escape or liberation would menace +with incarceration for a long term as Federal prisoners in distant +penitentiaries, if, indeed, they were not already answerable to the law +for some worse crime than illicit distilling. His murder would be the +extreme of brutal craft, so devised as to seem an accident, against the +possibility of future investigation. + +The reflection turned Wyatt deathly cold, he who could not bear unmoved +the plea of a wild thing's eye. He sturdily sought to pull himself +together. It was none of his decree; it was none of his deed, he argued. +The older moonshiners, who managed all the details of the enterprise, +would direct the event with absolute authority and the immutability of +fate. But whatever should be done, he revolted from any knowledge of +it, as from any share in the act. He had risen to leave the place, all +strange of aspect now, metamorphosed,--various disorderly details of +the prohibited industry ever and anon surging up from the still-room +below,--when a hoarse voice took cognizance of his intention with a +remonstrance. + +"Why, Watt Wyatt, _ye_ can't go out in the cove. Ye air dead! Ye will +let that t'other revenue-raider ye seen into the secret o' the bresh +whisky in our wagon ef ye air viewed about whenst 'Gene hev spread the +report that ye air dead. Wait till them raiders hev cleared out of the +kentry." + +The effort at detention, to interfere with his liberty, added redoubled +impetus to Wyatt 's desire to be gone. He suddenly devised a cogent +necessity. "I be feared my dad mought hear that fool tale. I ain't much +loss, but dad would feel it." + +"Oh, I sent Jack thar ter tell him better whenst he drove ter mill +ter-day ter git the meal fer the mash. Jack made yer dad understand +'bout yer sudden demise." + +"Oh, yeh," interposed the glib Jack; "an' he said ez _he_ couldn't abide +sech jokes." + +"Shucks!" cried the filial Wyatt. "Dad war full fresky himself in his +young days; I hev hearn his old frien's say so." + +"I tried ter slick things over," said the diplomatic Jack. "I 'lowed +young folks war giddy by nature. I 'lowed 't war jes a flash o' fun. +An' he say: 'Flash o' fun be con-sarned! My son is more like a flash o' +lightning; ez suddint an' mischeevious an' totally ondesirable.'" + +The reproach obviously struck home, for Wyatt maintained a disconsolate +silence for a time. At length, apparently goaded by his thoughts to +attempt a defense, he remonstrated: + +"Nobody ever war dead less of his own free will. I never elected ter +be a harnt. 'Gene Barker hed no right ter nominate _me_ fer the dear +departed, nohow." + +One of the uncouth younger fellows, his shoulders laden with a sack of +meal, paused on his way from the porch to the trap-door to look up from +beneath his burden with a sly grin as he said, "'Gene war wishin' it war +true, that's why." + +"'Count o' Minta Elladine Riggs," gaily chimed in another. + +"But 'Gene needn't gredge Watt foothold on this yearth fer sech; _she_ +ain't keerin' whether Watt lives or dies," another contributed to the +rough, rallying fun. + +But Wyatt was of sensitive fibre. He had flushed angrily; his eyes were +alight; a bitter retort was trembling on his lips when one of the elder +Barkers, discriminating the elements of an uncontrollable fracas, seized +on the alternative. + +"Could you-uns _sure_ be back hyar by daybreak, Watt!" he asked, fixing +the young fellow with a stern eye. + +"No 'spectable ghost roams around arter sun-up," cried Wyatt, fairly +jovial at the prospect of liberation. + +"Ye mus' be heedful not ter be viewed," the senior admonished him. + +"I be goin' ter slip about keerful like a reg'lar, stiddy-goin' harnt, +an' eavesdrop a bit. It's worth livin' a hard life ter view how a +feller's friends will take his demise." + +"I reckon ye kin make out ter meet the wagin kemin' back from the +cross-roads' store. It went out this evenin' with that coffin full of +jugs that ye lef' las' night under the church-house, whenst 'Gene seen +you-uns war suspicioned. They will hev time ter git ter the cross-roads +with the whisky on' back little arter midnight, special' ez we-uns hev +got the raider that spied out the job hyar fast by the leg." + +The mere mention of the young prisoner rendered Wyatt the more eager +to be gone, to be out of sight and sound. But he had no agency in +the disaster, he urged against some inward clamor of protest; the +catastrophe was the logical result of the fool-hardiness of the officer +in following these desperate men with no backing, with no power +to apprehend or hold, relying on his flimsy disguise, and risking +delivering himself into their hands, fettered as he was with the +knowledge of his discovery of their secret. + +"It's nothin' ter _me_, nohow," Wyatt was continually repeating to +himself, though when he sprang through the door he could scarcely draw +his breath because of some mysterious, invisible clutch at his throat. + +He sought to ascribe this symptom to the density of the pervasive fog +without, that impenetrably cloaked all the world; one might wonder how a +man could find his way through the opaque white vapor. It was, however, +an accustomed medium to the young mountaineer, and his feet, too, had +something of that unclassified muscular instinct, apart from reason, +which guides in an oft-trodden path. Once he came to a halt, from no +uncertainty of locality, but to gaze apprehensively through the blank, +white mists over a shuddering shoulder. "I wonder ef thar be any other +harnts aloose ter-night, a-boguing through the fog an' the moon," he +speculated. Presently he went on again, shaking his head sagely. "I +ain't wantin' ter collogue with sech," he averred cautiously. + +Occasionally the moonlight fell in expansive splendor through a rift in +the white vapor; amidst the silver glintings a vague, illusory panorama +of promontory and island, bay and inlet, far ripplings of gleaming +deeps, was presented like some magic reminiscence, some ethereal replica +of the past, the simulacrum of the seas of these ancient coves, long +since ebbed away and vanished. + +The sailing moon visibly rocked, as the pulsing tides of the cloud-ocean +rose and fell, and ever and anon this supernal craft was whelmed in +its surgings, and once more came majestically into view, freighted with +fancies and heading for the haven of the purple western shores. + +In one of these clearances of the mists a light of an alien type caught +the eye of the wandering spectre--a light, red, mundane, of prosaic +suggestion. It filtered through the crevice of a small batten shutter. + +The ghost paused, his head speculatively askew. "Who sits so late at the +forge!" he marvelled, for he was now near the base of the mountain, and +he recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its roof +aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As +he neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a +deep, gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words +made the matter plain. + +"High, Low, Jack, _and_ game! Fork! Fork!" Once more there arose a high +falsetto shriek of jubilant laughter. + +Walter Wyatt crept noiselessly down the steep slant toward the shutter. +He had no sense of intrusion, for he was often one of the merry blades +wont to congregate at the forge at night and take a hand at cards, +despite the adverse sentiment of the cove and the vigilance of the +constable of the district, bent on enforcing the laws prohibiting +gaming. As Wyatt stood at the crevice of the shutter the whole interior +was distinct before him--the disabled wagon-wheels against the walls, +the horse-shoes on a rod across the window, the great hood of the forge, +the silent bellows, with its long, motionless handle. A kerosene lamp, +perched on the elevated hearth of the forge, illumined the group of wild +young mountaineers clustered about a barrel on the head of which the +cards were dealt. There were no chairs; one of the gamesters sat on a +keg of nails; another on an inverted splint basket; two on a rude bench +that was wont to be placed outside the door for the accommodation +of customers waiting for a horse to be shod or a plow to be laid. An +onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his ambition of admission +to the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this coign of vantage +beheld all the outspread landscape of the "hands." More than once his +indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his survey of the +cards menaced him with a broken head. More innocuous to the interests of +the play was a wight humbly ensconced on the shoeing-stool, which +barely brought his head to the level of the board; but as he was densely +ignorant of the game, he took no disadvantage from his lowly posture. +His head was red, and as it moved erratically about in the gloom, +Watt Wyatt thought for a moment that it was the smith's red setter. He +grinned as he resolved that some day he would tell the fellow this as +a pleasing gibe; but the thought was arrested by the sound of his own +name. + +"Waal, sir," said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, "I s'pose +ye hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's takin' off." + +"An' none too soon, sartain." A sour visage was glimpsed beneath the +wide brim of the speaker's hat. + +"Waal," drawled the semblance of the setter from deep in the +clare-obscure, "Watt war jes a fool from lack o' sense." + +"That kind o' fool can't be cured," said another of the players. Then +he sharply adjuxed the dealer. "Look out what ye be doin'! Ye hev gimme +_two_ kyerds." + +"'Gene Barker will git ter marry Minta Elladine Biggs now, I reckon," +suggested the man on the anvil. + +"An' I'll dance at the weddin' with right good will an' a nimble toe," +declared the dealer, vivaciously. "I'll be glad ter see that couple +settled. That gal couldn't make up her mind ter let Walter Wyatt go, an' +yit no woman in her senses would hev been willin, ter marry him. He war +ez unresponsible ez--ez--fox-fire." + +"An' ez onstiddy ez a harricane," commented another. + +"An' no more account than a mole in the yearth," said a third. + +The ghost at the window listened in aghast dismay and became pale in +sober truth, for these boon companions he had accounted the best friends +he had in the world. They had no word of regret, no simple human pity; +even that facile meed of casual praise that he was "powerful pleasant +company" was withheld. And for these and such as these he had bartered +the esteem of the community at large and his filial duty and obedience; +had spurned the claims of good citizenship and placed himself in +jeopardy of the law; had forfeited the hand of the woman he loved. + +"Minta Elladine Biggs ain't keerin' nohow fer sech ez Watt," said the +semblance of the setter, with a knowing nod of his red head. "I war up +thar at the mill whenst the news kem ter-day, an' she war thar ter git +some seconds. I hev hearn women go off in high-strikes fer a lovyer's +death--even Mis' Simton, though hern was jes her husband, an 'a mighty +pore one at that. But Minta Elladine jes listened quiet an' composed, +an' never said one word." + +The batten shutter was trembling in the ghost's hand. In fact, so +convulsive was his grasp that it shook the hook from the staple, and the +shutter slowly opened as he stood at gaze. + +Perhaps it was the motion that attracted the attention of the dealer, +perhaps the influx of a current of fresh air. He lifted his casual +glance and beheld, distinct in the light from the kerosene lamp +and imposed on the white background of the mist, that familiar and +individual face, pallid, fixed, strange, with an expression that he had +never seen it wear hitherto. One moment of suspended faculties, and he +sprang up with a wild cry that filled the little shanty with its shrill +terror. The others gazed astounded upon him, then followed the direction +of his starting eyes, and echoed his frantic fright. There was a wild +scurry toward the door. The overturning of the lamp was imminent, but +it still burned calmly on the elevated hearth, while the shoeing-stool +capsized in the rush, and the red head of its lowly occupant was lowlier +still, rolling on the dirt floor. Even with this disadvantage, however, +he was not the hindmost, and reached the exit unhurt. The only specific +damage wrought by the panic was to the big barnlike doors of the place. +They had been stanchly barred against the possible intrusion of +the constable of the district, and the fastenings in so critical an +emergency could not be readily loosed. The united weight and impetus of +the onset burst the flimsy doors into fragments, and as the party fled +in devious directions in the misty moonlight, the calm radiance entered +at the wide-spread portal and illuminated the vacant place where late +had been so merry a crew. + +Walter Wyatt had known the time when the incident would have held an +incomparable relish for him. But now he gazed all forlorn into the empty +building with a single thought in his mind. "Not one of 'em keered a +mite! Nare good word, nare sigh, not even, 'Fare ye well, old mate!'" + +His breast heaved, his eyes flashed. + +"An' I hev loant money ter Jim, whenst I hed need myself; an' holped +George in the mill, when his wrist war sprained, without a cent o' pay; +an' took the blame when 'Dolphus war faulted by his dad fur lamin' the +horse-critter; an' stood back an' let Pete git the meat whenst we-uns +shot fur beef, bein' he hev got a wife an' chil'ren ter feed. All +_leetle_ favors, but nare _leetle_ word." + +He had turned from the window and was tramping absently down the road, +all unmindful of the skulking methods of the spectral gentry. If he had +chanced to be observed, his little farce, that had yet an element of +tragedy in its presentation, must soon have reached its close. But +the fog hung about him like a cloak, and when the moon cast aside the +vapors, it was in a distant silver sheen illumining the far reaches of +the valley. Only when its light summoned forth a brilliant and glancing +reflection on a lower level, as if a thousand sabers were unsheathed at +a word, he recognized the proximity of the river and came to a sudden +halt. + +"Whar is this fool goin'?" he demanded angrily of space. "To the +graveyard, I declar', ez ef I war a harnt fur true, an' buried sure +enough. An' I wish I war. I wish I war." + +He realized, after a moment's consideration, that he had been +unconsciously actuated by the chance of meeting the wagon, returning by +this route from the cross-roads' store. He was tired, disheartened; his +spirit was spent; he would be glad of the lift. He reflected, +however, that he must needs wait some time, for this was the date of a +revival-meeting at the little church, and the distillers' wagon would +lag, that its belated night journey might not be subjected to the +scrutiny and comment of the church-goers. Indeed, even now Walter Wyatt +saw in the distance the glimmer of a lantern, intimating homeward-bound +worshipers not yet out of sight. + +"The saints kep' it up late ter-night," he commented. + +He resolved to wait till the roll of wheels should tell of the return of +the moonshiners' empty wagon. + +He crossed the river on the little footbridge and took his way languidly +along the road toward the deserted church. He was close to the hedge +that grew thick and rank about the little inclosure when he suddenly +heard the sound of lamentation from within. He drew back precipitately, +with a sense of sacrilege, but the branches of the unpruned growth had +caught in his sleeve, and he sought to disengage the cloth without such +rustling stir as might disturb or alarm the mourner, who had evidently +lingered here, after the dispersal of the congregation, for a moment's +indulgence of grief and despair. He had a glimpse through the shaking +boughs and the flickering mist of a woman's figure kneeling on the +crude red clods of a new-made grave. A vague, anxious wonder as to the +deceased visited him, for in the sparsely settled districts a strong +community sense prevails. Suddenly in a choking gust of sobs and burst +of tears he recognized his own name in a voice of which every inflection +was familiar. For a moment his heart seemed to stand still. His brain +whirled with a realization of this unforeseen result of the fantastic +story of his death in Eskaqua Cove, which the moonshiners, on the verge +of detection and arrest, had circulated in Tanglefoot as a measure of +safety. They had fancied that when the truth was developed it would be +easy enough to declare the men drunk or mistaken. The "revenuers" by +that time would be far away, and the pervasive security, always the +sequence of a raid, successful or otherwise, would once more promote +the manufacture of the brush whisky. The managers of the moon-shining +interest had taken measures to guard Wyatt's aged father from this +fantasy of woe, but they had not dreamed that the mountain coquette +might care. He himself stood appalled that this ghastly fable should +delude his heart's beloved, amazed that it should cost her one sigh, +one sob. Her racking paroxysms of grief over this gruesome figment of a +grave he was humiliated to hear, he was woeful to see. He felt that he +was not worth one tear of the floods with which she bewept his name, +uttered in every cadence of tender regret that her melancholy voice +could compass. It must cease, she must know the truth at whatever cost. +He broke through the hedge and stood in the flicker of the moonlight +before her, pale, agitated, all unlike his wonted self. + +She did not hear, amid the tumult of her weeping, the rustling of the +boughs, but some subtle sense took cognizance of his presence. She half +rose, and with one hand holding back her dense yellow hair, which +had fallen forward on her forehead, she looked up at him fearfully, +tremulously, with all the revolt of the corporeal creature for the +essence of the mysterious incorporeal. For a moment he could not speak. +So much he must needs explain. The next instant he was whelmed in the +avalanche of her words. + +"Te hev kem!" she exclaimed in a sort of shrill ecstasy. "Te hev kem so +far ter hear the word that I would give my life ter hev said before. Te +knowed it in heaven! an' how like ye ter kem ter gin me the chanst ter +say it at last! How like the good heart of ye, worth all the hearts on +yearth--an' _buried hyar!_" + +With her open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of +despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. "I +love ye! Oh, I _always_ loved ye! I never keered fur nobody else! an' I +war tongue-tied, an' full of fool pride, an' faultin' ye fur yer ways; +an' I wouldn't gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin' ter hear. But now +I kin tell the pore ghost of ye--I kin tell the pore, pore ghost!" + +She buried her swollen, tear-stained face in her hands, and shook her +head to and fro with the realization of the futility of late repentance. +As she once more lifted her eyes, she was obviously surprised to see +him still standing there, and the crisis seemed to restore to him the +faculty of speech. + +"Minta Elladine," he said huskily and prosaically, "I ain't dead!" + +She sprang to her feet and stood gazing at him, intent and quivering. + +"I be truly alive an' kicking an' ez worthless ez ever," he went on. + +She said not a word, but bent and pallid, and, quaking in every muscle, +stood peering beneath her hand, which still held back her hair. + +"It's all a mistake," he urged. "This ain't no grave. The top war dug a +leetle ter turn off a revenuer's suspicions o' the moonshiners. They put +that tale out." + +Still, evidently on the verge of collapse, she did not speak. + +"Ye needn't be afeared ez I be goin' ter take fur true all I hearn +ye say; folks air gin ter vauntin' the dead," he paused for a moment, +remembering the caustic comments over the deal of the cards, then added, +"though I reckon _I_ hev hed some cur'ous 'speriences ez a harnt." + +She suddenly threw up both arms with a shrill scream, half nervous +exhaustion, half inexpressible delight. She swayed to and fro, almost +fainting, her balance failing. He caught her in his arms, and she leaned +sobbing against his breast. + +"I stand ter every word of it," she cried, her voice broken and lapsed +from control. "I love ye, an' I despise all the rest!" + +"I be powerful wild," he suggested contritely. + +"I ain't keerin' ef ye be ez wild ez a deer." + +"But I'm goin' to quit gamesome company an' playin' kyerds an' sech. I +expec' ter mend my ways now," he promised eagerly. + +"Ye kin mend 'em or let 'em stay tore, jes ez ye please," she declared +recklessly. "I ain't snatched my lovyer from the jaws o' death ter want +him otherwise; ye be plumb true-hearted, _I know_." + +"I mought ez well hev been buried in this grave fer the last ten year' +fer all the use I hev been," he protested solemnly; "but I hev learnt +a lesson through bein' a harnt fer a while--I hev jes kem ter life. I'm +goin' ter _live_ now. I'll make myself some use in the world, an' fust +off I be goin' ter hinder the murder of a man what they hev got trapped +up yander at the still." + +This initial devoir of his reformation, however, Wyatt found no easy +matter. The event had been craftily planned to seem an accident, a fall +from a cliff in pursuing the wagon, and only the most ardent and +cogent urgency on Wyatt's part prevailed at length. He argued that this +interpretation of the disaster would not satisfy the authorities. To +take the raider's life insured discovery, retribution. But as he had +been brought to the still in the night, it was obvious that if he +were conveyed under cover of darkness and by roundabout trails within +striking distance of the settlements, he could never again find his +way to the locality in the dense wilderness. In his detention he had +necessarily learned nothing fresh, for the only names he could have +overheard had long been obnoxious to suspicion of moonshining, and +afforded no proof. Thus humanity, masquerading as caution, finally +triumphed, and the officer, blindfolded, was conducted through devious +and winding ways many miles distant, and released within a day's travel +of the county town. + +Walter Wyatt was scarcely welcomed back to life by the denizens of the +cove generally with the enthusiasm attendant on the first moments of his +resuscitation, so to speak. He never forgot the solemn ecstasy of +that experience, and in later years he was wont to annul any menace of +discord with his wife by the warning, half jocose, half tender: "Ye hed +better mind; ye'll be sorry some day fur treatin' me so mean. Remember, +I hev viewed ye a-weepin' over my grave before now." + +A reformation, however complete and salutary, works no change of +identity, and although he developed into an orderly, industrious, +law-abiding citizen, his prankish temperament remained recognizable +in the fantastic fables which he delighted to recount at some genial +fireside of what he had seen and heard as a ghost. + +"Pears like, Watt, ye hed more experiences whenst dead than living" said +an auditor, as these stories multiplied. + +"I did, fur a fack," Watt protested. "I war a powerful onchancy, onquiet +ghost. I even did my courtin' whilst in my reg'lar line o' business +a-hanatin' a graveyard." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Unquiet Ghost, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + +***** This file should be named 23556-8.txt or 23556-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23556/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: His Unquiet Ghost + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23556] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + HIS UNQUIET GHOST + </h1> + <h2> + By Charles Egbert Craddock <br /> <br /> 1911 + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + The moon was high in the sky. The wind was laid. So silent was the vast + stretch of mountain wilderness, aglint with the dew, that the tinkle of a + rill far below in the black abyss seemed less a sound than an evidence of + the pervasive quietude, since so slight a thing, so distant, could compass + so keen a vibration. For an hour or more the three men who lurked in the + shadow of a crag in the narrow mountain-pass, heard nothing else. When at + last they caught the dull reverberation of a slow wheel and the occasional + metallic clank of a tire against a stone, the vehicle was fully three + miles distant by the winding road in the valley. Time lagged. Only by + imperceptible degrees the sound of deliberate approach grew louder on the + air as the interval of space lessened. At length, above their ambush at + the summit of the mountain's brow the heads of horses came into view, + distinct in the moonlight between the fibrous pines and the vast expanse + of the sky above the valley. Even then there was renewed delay. The driver + of the wagon paused to rest the team. + </p> + <p> + The three lurking men did not move; they scarcely ventured to breathe. + Only when there was no retrograde possible, no chance of escape, when the + vehicle was fairly on the steep declivity of the road, the precipice sheer + on one side, the wall of the ridge rising perpendicularly on the other, + did two of them, both revenue-raiders disguised as mountaineers, step + forth from the shadow. The other, the informer, a genuine mountaineer, + still skulked motionless in the darkness. The “revenuers,” ascending the + road, maintained a slow, lunging gait, as if they had toiled from far. + </p> + <p> + Their abrupt appearance had the effect of a galvanic shock to the man + handling the reins, a stalwart, rubicund fellow, who visibly paled. He + drew up so suddenly as almost to throw the horses from their feet. + </p> + <p> + “G'evenin',” ventured Browdie, the elder of the raiders, in a husky voice + affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a mimic, + and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people, this gift + greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed. “Ye're + haulin' late,” he added, for the hour was close to midnight. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, stranger; haulin' late, from Eskaqua—a needcessity.” + </p> + <p> + “What's yer cargo?” asked Browdie, seeming only ordinarily inquisitive. + </p> + <p> + A sepulchral cadence was in the driver's voice, and the disguised raiders + noted that the three other men on the wagon had preserved, throughout, a + solemn silence. “What we-uns mus' all be one day, stranger—a + corpus.” + </p> + <p> + Browdie was stultified for a moment Then, sustaining his assumed + character, he said: “I hope it be nobody I know. I be fairly well + acquainted in Eskaqua, though I hail from down in Lonesome Cove. Who be + dead!” + </p> + <p> + There was palpably a moment's hesitation before the spokesman replied: + “Watt Wyatt; died day 'fore yestiddy.” + </p> + <p> + At the words, one of the silent men in the wagon turned his face suddenly, + with such obvious amazement depicted upon it that it arrested the + attention of the “rev-enuers.” This face was so individual that it was not + likely to be easily mistaken or forgotten. A wild, breezy look it had, and + a tricksy, incorporeal expression that might well befit some fantastic, + fabled thing of the woods. It was full of fine script of elusive meanings, + not registered in the lineaments of the prosaic man of the day, though + perchance of scant utility, not worth interpretation. His full gray eyes + were touched to glancing brilliancy by a moonbeam; his long, fibrously + floating brown hair was thrown backward; his receding chin was peculiarly + delicate; and though his well-knit frame bespoke a hardy vigor, his pale + cheek was soft and thin. All the rustic grotesquery of garb and posture + was cancelled by the deep shadow of a bough, and his delicate face showed + isolated in the moonlight. + </p> + <p> + Browdie silently pondered his vague suspicions for a moment “Whar did he + die at?” he then demanded at a venture. + </p> + <p> + “At his daddy's house, fur sure. Whar else?” responded the driver. “I hev + got what's lef' of him hyar in the coffin-box. We expected ter make it ter + Shiloh buryin'-ground 'fore dark; but the road is middlin' heavy, an' + 'bout five mile' back Ben cast a shoe. The funeral warn't over much 'fore + noon.” + </p> + <p> + “Whyn't they bury him in Eskaqua, whar he died!” persisted Browdie. + </p> + <p> + “Waal, they planned ter bury him alongside his mother an' gran'dad, what + used ter live in Tanglefoot Cove. But we air wastin' time hyar, an' we hev + got none ter spare. Gee, Ben! Git up, John!” + </p> + <p> + The wagon gave a lurch; the horses, holding back in bracing attitudes far + from the pole, went teetering down the steep slant, the locked wheel + dragging heavily; the four men sat silent, two in slouching postures at + the head of the coffin; the third, with the driver, was at its foot. It + seemed drearily suggestive, the last journey of this humble mortality, in + all the splendid environment of the mountains, under the vast expansions + of the aloof skies, in the mystic light of the unnoting moon. + </p> + <p> + “Is this bona-fide?” asked Browdie, with a questioning glance at the + informer, who had at length crept forth. + </p> + <p> + “I dunno,” sullenly responded the mountaineer. He had acquainted the two + officers, who were of a posse of revenue-raiders hovering in the vicinity, + with the mysterious circumstance that a freighted wagon now and then made + a midnight transit across these lonely ranges. He himself had heard only + occasionally in a wakeful hour the roll of heavy wheels, but he + interpreted this as the secret transportation of brush whisky from the + still to its market. He had thought to fix the transgression on an old + enemy of his own, long suspected of moonshining; but he was acquainted + with none of the youngsters on the wagon, at whom he had peered cautiously + from behind the rocks. His actuating motive in giving information to the + emissaries of the government had been the rancor of an old feud, and his + detection meant certain death. He had not expected the revenue-raiders to + be outnumbered by the supposed moonshiners, and he would not fight in the + open. He had no sentiment of fealty to the law, and the officers glanced + at each other in uncertainty. + </p> + <p> + “This evidently is not the wagon in question,” said Browdie, disappointed. + </p> + <p> + “I'll follow them a bit,” volunteered Bonan, the younger and the more + active of the two officers. “Seems to me they'll bear watching.” + </p> + <p> + Indeed, as the melancholy cortège fared down and down the steep road, + dwindling in the sheeny distance, the covert and half-suppressed laughter + of the sepulchral escort was of so keen a relish that it was well that the + scraping of the locked wheel aided the distance to mask the incongruous + sound. + </p> + <p> + “What ailed you-uns ter name <i>me</i> as the corpus, 'Gene Barker?” + demanded Walter Wyatt, when he had regained the capacity of coherent + speech. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I hed ter do suddint murder on somebody,” declared the driver, all + bluff and reassured and red-faced again, “an' I couldn't think quick of + nobody else. Besides, I helt a grudge agin' you fer not stuffin' mo' straw + 'twixt them jimmyjohns in the coffin-box.” + </p> + <p> + “That's a fac'. Ye air too triflin' ter be let ter live, Watt,” cried one + of their comrades. “I hearn them jugs clash tergether in the coffin-box + when 'Gene checked the team up suddint, I tell you. An' them men sure + 'peared ter me powerful suspectin'.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> hearn the clash of them jimmyjohns,” chimed in the driver. “I + really thunk my hour war come. Some informer must hev set them men ter + spyin' round fer moonshine.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, surely nobody wouldn't dare,” urged one of the group, uneasily; for + the identity of an informer was masked in secrecy, and his fate, when + discovered, was often gruesome. + </p> + <p> + “They couldn't hev noticed the clash of them jimmyjohns, nohow,” declared + the negligent Watt, nonchalantly. “But namin' <i>me</i> fur the dead one! + Supposin' they air revenuers fur true, an' hed somebody along, hid out in + the bresh, ez war acquainted with me by sight——” + </p> + <p> + “Then they'd hev been skeered out'n thar boots, that's all,” interrupted + the self-sufficient 'Gene. “They would hev 'lowed they hed viewed yer + brazen ghost, bold ez brass, standin' at the head of yer own coffin-box.” + </p> + <p> + “Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn't + acquainted with <i>me</i>,” persisted Watt, with his unique sense of + injury. + </p> + <p> + Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. “They would hev + jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an' at-tendin' him ter his long + home.” + </p> + <p> + “'Gene don't keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt,” one of the + others suggested tactlessly, “'count o' Minta Elladine Biggs.” + </p> + <p> + Eugene Barker's off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity + and his evident rancor as he declared: “<i>I</i> ain't carin' fur sech ez + Watt Wyatt. An' they <i>do</i> say in the cove that Minta Elladine Biggs + hev gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin' + kyerds, a-bet-tin' his money, drinkin' apple-jack, an' sech.” + </p> + <p> + The newly constituted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if to + retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes + widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he + pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of-the coffin was the + simulacrum of the figure of aman. + </p> + <p> + One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned a + significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a + fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of a + more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence + could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted + his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an + indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at + that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box. + </p> + <p> + The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed. The + number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at least one + of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the precipice and + the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had gradually dwindled to + a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and there washed out by recent + rains, and one of these indentations might have afforded an active man + access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had evidently kept abreast of them, + speeding along in great leaps through the lush growth of huckleberry + bushes, wild grasses, pawpaw thickets, silvered by the moon, all fringing + the great forests that had given way on the shelving verge of the steeps + where the road ran. Had he overheard their unguarded, significant words? + Who could divine, so silent were the windless mountains, so deep a-dream + the darksome woods, so spellbound the mute and mystic moonlight? + </p> + <p> + The group maintained a cautious reticence now, each revolving the + problematic disclosure of their secret, each canvassing the question + whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy + proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they + venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in midstream and + stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, as + the team manifested an inclination to drink in transit; and thence, as he + stood thus perched, he gazed to and fro, the stretch of dark and lustrous + ripples baffling all approach within ear-shot, the watering of the horses + justifying the pause and cloaking its significance to any distant + observer. + </p> + <p> + But the interval was indeed limited; the mental processes of such men are + devoid of complexity, and their decisions prompt. They advanced few + alternatives; their prime object was to be swiftly rid of the coffin and + its inculpating contents, and with the “revenuer” so hard on their heels + this might seem a troublous problem enough. + </p> + <p> + “Put it whar a coffin b'longs—in the churchyard,” said Wyatt; for at + a considerable distance beyond the rise of the opposite bank could be seen + a barren clearing in which stood a gaunt, bare, little white frame + building that served all the country-side for its infrequent religious + services. + </p> + <p> + “We couldn't dig a grave before that spy—ef he be a revenuer sure + enough—could overhaul us,” Eugene Barker objected. + </p> + <p> + “We could turn the yearth right smart, though,” persisted Wyatt, for + pickax and shovel had been brought in the wagon for the sake of an aspect + of verisimilitude and to mask their true intent. + </p> + <p> + Eugene Barker acceded to this view. “That's the dinctum—dig a few + jes fer a blind. We kin slip the coffin-box under the church-house 'fore + he gits in sight,—he'll be feared ter follow too close,—an' + leave it thar till the other boys kin wagon it ter the cross-roads' store + ter-morrer night.” + </p> + <p> + The horses, hitherto held to the sober gait of funeral travel, were now + put to a speedy trot, unmindful of whatever impression of flight the pace + might give to the revenue-raider in pursuit. The men were soon engrossed + in their deceptive enterprise in the churchyard, plying pickax and shovel + for dear life; now and again they paused to listen vainly for the sound of + stealthy approach. They knew that there was the most precarious and + primitive of foot-bridges across the deep stream, to traverse which would + cost an unaccustomed wayfarer both time and pains; thus the interval was + considerable before the resonance of rapid footfalls gave token that their + pursuer had found himself obliged to sprint smartly along the country road + to keep any hope of ever again' viewing the wagon which the intervening + water-course had withdrawn from his sight. That this hope had grown + tenuous was evident in his relinquishment of his former caution, for when + they again caught a glimpse of him he was forging along in the middle of + the road without any effort at concealment. But as the wagon appeared in + the perspective, stationary, hitched to the hedge of the graveyard, he + recurred to his previous methods. The four men still within the + in-closure, now busied in shovelling the earth back again into the + excavation they had so swiftly made, covertly watched him as he skulked + into the shadow of the wayside. The little “church-house,” with all its + windows whitely aglare in the moonlight, reflected the pervasive sheen, + and silent, spectral, remote, it seemed as if it might well harbor at + times its ghastly neighbors from the quiet cemetery without, dimly ranging + themselves once more in the shadowy ranks of its pews or grimly stalking + down the drear and deserted aisles. The fact that the rising ground toward + the rear of the building necessitated a series of steps at the entrance, + enabled the officer to mask behind this tall flight his crouching + approach, and thus he ensconced himself in the angle between the wall and + the steps, and looked forth in fancied security. + </p> + <p> + The shadows multiplied the tale of the dead that the head-boards kept, + each similitude askew in the moonlight on the turf below the slanting + monument To judge by the motions of the men engaged in the burial and the + mocking antics of their silhouettes on the ground, it must have been + obvious to the spectator that they were already filling in the earth. The + interment may have seemed to him suspiciously swift, but the possibility + was obvious that the grave might have been previously dug in anticipation + of their arrival. It was plain that he was altogether unprepared for the + event when they came slouching forth to the wagon, and the stalwart and + red-faced driver, with no manifestation of surprise, hailed him as he + still crouched in his lurking-place. “Hello, stranger! Warn't that you-uns + runnin' arter the wagon a piece back yonder jes a while ago?” + </p> + <p> + The officer rose to his feet, with an intent look both dismayed and + embarrassed. He did not venture on speech; he merely acceded with a nod. + </p> + <p> + “Ye want a lift, I reckon.” + </p> + <p> + The stranger was hampered by the incongruity between his rustic garb, + common to the coves, and his cultivated intonation; for, unlike his + comrade Browdie, he had no mimetic faculties whatever. Nevertheless, he + was now constrained to “face the music.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't want to interrupt you,” he said, seeking such excuse as due + consideration for the circumstances might afford; “but I'd like to ask + where I could get lodging for the night.” + </p> + <p> + “What's yer name?” demanded Barker, unceremoniously. + </p> + <p> + “Francis Bonan,” the raider replied, with more assurance. Then he added, + by way of explaining his necessity, “I'm a stranger hereabouts.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye air so,” assented the sarcastic 'Gene. “Ye ain't even acquainted with + yer own clothes. Ye be a town man.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I'm not the first man who has had to hide out,” Ronan parried, + seeking to justify his obvious disguise. + </p> + <p> + “Shot somebody?” asked 'Gene, with an apparent accession of interest. + </p> + <p> + “It's best for me not to tell.” + </p> + <p> + “So be.” 'Gene acquiesced easily. “Waal, ef ye kin put up with sech + accommodations ez our'n, I'll take ye home with me.” + </p> + <p> + Ronan stood aghast. But there was no door of retreat open. He was alone + and helpless. He could not conceal the fact that the turn affairs had + taken was equally unexpected and terrifying to him, and the moonshiners, + keenly watchful, were correspondingly elated to discern that he had surely + no reinforcements within reach to nerve him to resistance or to menace + their liberty. He had evidently followed them too far, too recklessly; + perhaps without the consent and against the counsel of his comrades, + perhaps even without their knowledge of his movements and intention. + </p> + <p> + Now and again as the wagon jogged on and on toward their distant haven, + the moonlight gradually dulling to dawn, Wyatt gave the stranger a + wondering, covert glance, vaguely, shrinkingly curious as to the + sentiments of a man vacillating between the suspicion of capture and the + recognition of a simple hospitality without significance or danger. The + man's face appealed to him, young, alert, intelligent, earnest, and the + anguish of doubt and anxiety it expressed went to his heart. In the + experience of his sylvan life as a hunter Wyatt's peculiar and subtle + temperament evolved certain fine-spun distinctions which were unique; a + trapped thing had a special appeal to his commiseration that a creature + ruthlessly slaughtered in the open was not privileged to claim. He did not + accurately and in words discriminate the differences, but he felt that the + captive had sounded all the gamut of hope and despair, shared the + gradations of an appreciated sorrow that makes all souls akin and that + even lifts the beast to the plane of brotherhood, the bond of emotional + woe. He had often with no other or better reason liberated the trophy of + his snare, calling after the amazed and franticly fleeing creature, + “Bye-bye, Buddy!” with peals of his whimsical, joyous laughter. + </p> + <p> + He was experiencing now a similar sequence of sentiments in noting the + wild-eyed eagerness with which the captured raider took obvious heed of + every minor point of worthiness that might mask the true character of his + entertainers. But, indeed, these deceptive hopes might have been easily + maintained by one not so desirous of reassurance when, in the darkest hour + before the dawn, they reached a large log-cabin sequestered in dense + woods, and he found himself an inmate of a simple, typical mountain + household. It held an exceedingly venerable grandfather, wielding his + infirmities as a rod of iron; a father and mother, hearty, hospitable, + subservient to the aged tyrant, but keeping in filial check a family of + sons and daughters-in-law, with an underfoot delegation of grandchildren, + who seemed to spend their time in a bewildering manouver of dashing out at + one door to dash in at another. A tumultuous rain had set in shortly after + dawn, with lightning and wind,—“the tail of a harricane,” as the + host called it,—and a terrible bird the actual storm must have been + to have a tail of such dimensions. There was no getting forth, no living + creature of free will “took water” in this elemental crisis. The numerous + dogs crowded the children away from the hearth, and the hens strolled + about the large living-room, clucking to scurrying broods. Even one of the + horses tramped up on the porch and looked in ever and anon, solicitous of + human company. + </p> + <p> + “I brung Ben up by hand, like a bottle-fed baby,” the hostess apologized, + “an' he ain't never fund out fur sure that he ain't folks.” + </p> + <p> + There seemed no possible intimation of moonshine in this entourage, and + the coffin filled with jugs, a-wagoning from some distillers' den in the + range to the cross-roads' store, might well have been accounted only the + vain phantasm of an overtired brain surcharged with the vexed problems of + the revenue service. The disguised revenue-raider was literally overcome + with drowsiness, the result of his exertions and his vigils, and observing + this, his host gave him one of the big feather beds under the low slant of + the eaves in the roof-room, where the other men, who had been out all + night, also slept the greater portion of the day. In fact, it was dark + when Wyatt wakened, and, leaving the rest still torpid with slumber and + fatigue, descended to the large main room of the cabin. + </p> + <p> + The callow members of the household had retired to rest, but the elders of + the band of moonshiners were up and still actively astir, and Wyatt + experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or + secrecy—the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of + apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. When + a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean air that + pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous odors, and + gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most unobservant inmate, + that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly immune to suspicion, + for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary mountain cabin. Thus the + infraction of the revenue law went on securely and continuously beneath + the placid, simple, domestic life, with its reverent care for the very + aged and its tender nurture of the very young. + </p> + <p> + It was significant, indeed, that the industry should not be pretermitted, + however, when a stranger was within the gates. The reason to Wyatt, + familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought, was only too + plain. They intended that the “revenuer” should never go forth to tell the + tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow his trail, either losing + it in the wilderness or from ignorance of his intention. He had put + himself hopelessly into the power of these desperate men, whom his escape + or liberation would menace with incarceration for a long term as Federal + prisoners in distant penitentiaries, if, indeed, they were not already + answerable to the law for some worse crime than illicit distilling. His + murder would be the extreme of brutal craft, so devised as to seem an + accident, against the possibility of future investigation. + </p> + <p> + The reflection turned Wyatt deathly cold, he who could not bear unmoved + the plea of a wild thing's eye. He sturdily sought to pull himself + together. It was none of his decree; it was none of his deed, he argued. + The older moonshiners, who managed all the details of the enterprise, + would direct the event with absolute authority and the immutability of + fate. But whatever should be done, he revolted from any knowledge of it, + as from any share in the act. He had risen to leave the place, all strange + of aspect now, metamorphosed,—various disorderly details of the + prohibited industry ever and anon surging up from the still-room below,—when + a hoarse voice took cognizance of his intention with a remonstrance. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Watt Wyatt, <i>ye</i> can't go out in the cove. Ye air dead! Ye will + let that t'other revenue-raider ye seen into the secret o' the bresh + whisky in our wagon ef ye air viewed about whenst 'Gene hev spread the + report that ye air dead. Wait till them raiders hev cleared out of the + kentry.” + </p> + <p> + The effort at detention, to interfere with his liberty, added redoubled + impetus to Wyatt 's desire to be gone. He suddenly devised a cogent + necessity. “I be feared my dad mought hear that fool tale. I ain't much + loss, but dad would feel it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I sent Jack thar ter tell him better whenst he drove ter mill ter-day + ter git the meal fer the mash. Jack made yer dad understand 'bout yer + sudden demise.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yeh,” interposed the glib Jack; “an' he said ez <i>he</i> couldn't + abide sech jokes.” + </p> + <p> + “Shucks!” cried the filial Wyatt. “Dad war full fresky himself in his + young days; I hev hearn his old frien's say so.” + </p> + <p> + “I tried ter slick things over,” said the diplomatic Jack. “I 'lowed young + folks war giddy by nature. I 'lowed 't war jes a flash o' fun. An' he say: + 'Flash o' fun be con-sarned! My son is more like a flash o' lightning; ez + suddint an' mischeevious an' totally ondesirable.'” + </p> + <p> + The reproach obviously struck home, for Wyatt maintained a disconsolate + silence for a time. At length, apparently goaded by his thoughts to + attempt a defense, he remonstrated: + </p> + <p> + “Nobody ever war dead less of his own free will. I never elected ter be a + harnt. 'Gene Barker hed no right ter nominate <i>me</i> fer the dear + departed, nohow.” + </p> + <p> + One of the uncouth younger fellows, his shoulders laden with a sack of + meal, paused on his way from the porch to the trap-door to look up from + beneath his burden with a sly grin as he said, “'Gene war wishin' it war + true, that's why.” + </p> + <p> + “'Count o' Minta Elladine Riggs,” gaily chimed in another. + </p> + <p> + “But 'Gene needn't gredge Watt foothold on this yearth fer sech; <i>she</i> + ain't keerin' whether Watt lives or dies,” another contributed to the + rough, rallying fun. + </p> + <p> + But Wyatt was of sensitive fibre. He had flushed angrily; his eyes were + alight; a bitter retort was trembling on his lips when one of the elder + Barkers, discriminating the elements of an uncontrollable fracas, seized + on the alternative. + </p> + <p> + “Could you-uns <i>sure</i> be back hyar by daybreak, Watt!” he asked, + fixing the young fellow with a stern eye. + </p> + <p> + “No 'spectable ghost roams around arter sun-up,” cried Wyatt, fairly + jovial at the prospect of liberation. + </p> + <p> + “Ye mus' be heedful not ter be viewed,” the senior admonished him. + </p> + <p> + “I be goin' ter slip about keerful like a reg'lar, stiddy-goin' harnt, an' + eavesdrop a bit. It's worth livin' a hard life ter view how a feller's + friends will take his demise.” + </p> + <p> + “I reckon ye kin make out ter meet the wagin kemin' back from the + cross-roads' store. It went out this evenin' with that coffin full of jugs + that ye lef' las' night under the church-house, whenst 'Gene seen you-uns + war suspicioned. They will hev time ter git ter the cross-roads with the + whisky on' back little arter midnight, special' ez we-uns hev got the + raider that spied out the job hyar fast by the leg.” + </p> + <p> + The mere mention of the young prisoner rendered Wyatt the more eager to be + gone, to be out of sight and sound. But he had no agency in the disaster, + he urged against some inward clamor of protest; the catastrophe was the + logical result of the fool-hardiness of the officer in following these + desperate men with no backing, with no power to apprehend or hold, relying + on his flimsy disguise, and risking delivering himself into their hands, + fettered as he was with the knowledge of his discovery of their secret. + </p> + <p> + “It's nothin' ter <i>me</i>, nohow,” Wyatt was continually repeating to + himself, though when he sprang through the door he could scarcely draw his + breath because of some mysterious, invisible clutch at his throat. + </p> + <p> + He sought to ascribe this symptom to the density of the pervasive fog + without, that impenetrably cloaked all the world; one might wonder how a + man could find his way through the opaque white vapor. It was, however, an + accustomed medium to the young mountaineer, and his feet, too, had + something of that unclassified muscular instinct, apart from reason, which + guides in an oft-trodden path. Once he came to a halt, from no uncertainty + of locality, but to gaze apprehensively through the blank, white mists + over a shuddering shoulder. “I wonder ef thar be any other harnts aloose + ter-night, a-boguing through the fog an' the moon,” he speculated. + Presently he went on again, shaking his head sagely. “I ain't wantin' ter + collogue with sech,” he averred cautiously. + </p> + <p> + Occasionally the moonlight fell in expansive splendor through a rift in + the white vapor; amidst the silver glintings a vague, illusory panorama of + promontory and island, bay and inlet, far ripplings of gleaming deeps, was + presented like some magic reminiscence, some ethereal replica of the past, + the simulacrum of the seas of these ancient coves, long since ebbed away + and vanished. + </p> + <p> + The sailing moon visibly rocked, as the pulsing tides of the cloud-ocean + rose and fell, and ever and anon this supernal craft was whelmed in its + surgings, and once more came majestically into view, freighted with + fancies and heading for the haven of the purple western shores. + </p> + <p> + In one of these clearances of the mists a light of an alien type caught + the eye of the wandering spectre—a light, red, mundane, of prosaic + suggestion. It filtered through the crevice of a small batten shutter. + </p> + <p> + The ghost paused, his head speculatively askew. “Who sits so late at the + forge!” he marvelled, for he was now near the base of the mountain, and he + recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its roof + aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As he + neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a deep, + gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words made the + matter plain. + </p> + <p> + “High, Low, Jack, <i>and</i> game! Fork! Fork!” Once more there arose a + high falsetto shriek of jubilant laughter. + </p> + <p> + Walter Wyatt crept noiselessly down the steep slant toward the shutter. He + had no sense of intrusion, for he was often one of the merry blades wont + to congregate at the forge at night and take a hand at cards, despite the + adverse sentiment of the cove and the vigilance of the constable of the + district, bent on enforcing the laws prohibiting gaming. As Wyatt stood at + the crevice of the shutter the whole interior was distinct before him—the + disabled wagon-wheels against the walls, the horse-shoes on a rod across + the window, the great hood of the forge, the silent bellows, with its + long, motionless handle. A kerosene lamp, perched on the elevated hearth + of the forge, illumined the group of wild young mountaineers clustered + about a barrel on the head of which the cards were dealt. There were no + chairs; one of the gamesters sat on a keg of nails; another on an inverted + splint basket; two on a rude bench that was wont to be placed outside the + door for the accommodation of customers waiting for a horse to be shod or + a plow to be laid. An onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his + ambition of admission to the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this + coign of vantage beheld all the outspread landscape of the “hands.” More + than once his indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his + survey of the cards menaced him with a broken head. More innocuous to the + interests of the play was a wight humbly ensconced on the shoeing-stool, + which barely brought his head to the level of the board; but as he was + densely ignorant of the game, he took no disadvantage from his lowly + posture. His head was red, and as it moved erratically about in the gloom, + Watt Wyatt thought for a moment that it was the smith's red setter. He + grinned as he resolved that some day he would tell the fellow this as a + pleasing gibe; but the thought was arrested by the sound of his own name. + </p> + <p> + “Waal, sir,” said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, “I s'pose ye + hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's takin' off.” + </p> + <p> + “An' none too soon, sartain.” A sour visage was glimpsed beneath the wide + brim of the speaker's hat. + </p> + <p> + “Waal,” drawled the semblance of the setter from deep in the + clare-obscure, “Watt war jes a fool from lack o' sense.” + </p> + <p> + “That kind o' fool can't be cured,” said another of the players. Then he + sharply adjuxed the dealer. “Look out what ye be doin'! Ye hev gimme <i>two</i> + kyerds.” + </p> + <p> + “'Gene Barker will git ter marry Minta Elladine Biggs now, I reckon,” + suggested the man on the anvil. + </p> + <p> + “An' I'll dance at the weddin' with right good will an' a nimble toe,” + declared the dealer, vivaciously. “I'll be glad ter see that couple + settled. That gal couldn't make up her mind ter let Walter Wyatt go, an' + yit no woman in her senses would hev been willin, ter marry him. He war ez + unresponsible ez—ez—fox-fire.” + </p> + <p> + “An' ez onstiddy ez a harricane,” commented another. + </p> + <p> + “An' no more account than a mole in the yearth,” said a third. + </p> + <p> + The ghost at the window listened in aghast dismay and became pale in sober + truth, for these boon companions he had accounted the best friends he had + in the world. They had no word of regret, no simple human pity; even that + facile meed of casual praise that he was “powerful pleasant company” was + withheld. And for these and such as these he had bartered the esteem of + the community at large and his filial duty and obedience; had spurned the + claims of good citizenship and placed himself in jeopardy of the law; had + forfeited the hand of the woman he loved. + </p> + <p> + “Minta Elladine Biggs ain't keerin' nohow fer sech ez Watt,” said the + semblance of the setter, with a knowing nod of his red head. “I war up + thar at the mill whenst the news kem ter-day, an' she war thar ter git + some seconds. I hev hearn women go off in high-strikes fer a lovyer's + death—even Mis' Simton, though hern was jes her husband, an 'a + mighty pore one at that. But Minta Elladine jes listened quiet an' + composed, an' never said one word.” + </p> + <p> + The batten shutter was trembling in the ghost's hand. In fact, so + convulsive was his grasp that it shook the hook from the staple, and the + shutter slowly opened as he stood at gaze. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps it was the motion that attracted the attention of the dealer, + perhaps the influx of a current of fresh air. He lifted his casual glance + and beheld, distinct in the light from the kerosene lamp and imposed on + the white background of the mist, that familiar and individual face, + pallid, fixed, strange, with an expression that he had never seen it wear + hitherto. One moment of suspended faculties, and he sprang up with a wild + cry that filled the little shanty with its shrill terror. The others gazed + astounded upon him, then followed the direction of his starting eyes, and + echoed his frantic fright. There was a wild scurry toward the door. The + overturning of the lamp was imminent, but it still burned calmly on the + elevated hearth, while the shoeing-stool capsized in the rush, and the red + head of its lowly occupant was lowlier still, rolling on the dirt floor. + Even with this disadvantage, however, he was not the hindmost, and reached + the exit unhurt. The only specific damage wrought by the panic was to the + big barnlike doors of the place. They had been stanchly barred against the + possible intrusion of the constable of the district, and the fastenings in + so critical an emergency could not be readily loosed. The united weight + and impetus of the onset burst the flimsy doors into fragments, and as the + party fled in devious directions in the misty moonlight, the calm radiance + entered at the wide-spread portal and illuminated the vacant place where + late had been so merry a crew. + </p> + <p> + Walter Wyatt had known the time when the incident would have held an + incomparable relish for him. But now he gazed all forlorn into the empty + building with a single thought in his mind. “Not one of 'em keered a mite! + Nare good word, nare sigh, not even, 'Fare ye well, old mate!'” + </p> + <p> + His breast heaved, his eyes flashed. + </p> + <p> + “An' I hev loant money ter Jim, whenst I hed need myself; an' holped + George in the mill, when his wrist war sprained, without a cent o' pay; + an' took the blame when 'Dolphus war faulted by his dad fur lamin' the + horse-critter; an' stood back an' let Pete git the meat whenst we-uns shot + fur beef, bein' he hev got a wife an' chil'ren ter feed. All <i>leetle</i> + favors, but nare <i>leetle</i> word.” + </p> + <p> + He had turned from the window and was tramping absently down the road, all + unmindful of the skulking methods of the spectral gentry. If he had + chanced to be observed, his little farce, that had yet an element of + tragedy in its presentation, must soon have reached its close. But the fog + hung about him like a cloak, and when the moon cast aside the vapors, it + was in a distant silver sheen illumining the far reaches of the valley. + Only when its light summoned forth a brilliant and glancing reflection on + a lower level, as if a thousand sabers were unsheathed at a word, he + recognized the proximity of the river and came to a sudden halt. + </p> + <p> + “Whar is this fool goin'?” he demanded angrily of space. “To the + graveyard, I declar', ez ef I war a harnt fur true, an' buried sure + enough. An' I wish I war. I wish I war.” + </p> + <p> + He realized, after a moment's consideration, that he had been + unconsciously actuated by the chance of meeting the wagon, returning by + this route from the cross-roads' store. He was tired, disheartened; his + spirit was spent; he would be glad of the lift. He reflected, however, + that he must needs wait some time, for this was the date of a + revival-meeting at the little church, and the distillers' wagon would lag, + that its belated night journey might not be subjected to the scrutiny and + comment of the church-goers. Indeed, even now Walter Wyatt saw in the + distance the glimmer of a lantern, intimating homeward-bound worshipers + not yet out of sight. + </p> + <p> + “The saints kep' it up late ter-night,” he commented. + </p> + <p> + He resolved to wait till the roll of wheels should tell of the return of + the moonshiners' empty wagon. + </p> + <p> + He crossed the river on the little footbridge and took his way languidly + along the road toward the deserted church. He was close to the hedge that + grew thick and rank about the little inclosure when he suddenly heard the + sound of lamentation from within. He drew back precipitately, with a sense + of sacrilege, but the branches of the unpruned growth had caught in his + sleeve, and he sought to disengage the cloth without such rustling stir as + might disturb or alarm the mourner, who had evidently lingered here, after + the dispersal of the congregation, for a moment's indulgence of grief and + despair. He had a glimpse through the shaking boughs and the flickering + mist of a woman's figure kneeling on the crude red clods of a new-made + grave. A vague, anxious wonder as to the deceased visited him, for in the + sparsely settled districts a strong community sense prevails. Suddenly in + a choking gust of sobs and burst of tears he recognized his own name in a + voice of which every inflection was familiar. For a moment his heart + seemed to stand still. His brain whirled with a realization of this + unforeseen result of the fantastic story of his death in Eskaqua Cove, + which the moonshiners, on the verge of detection and arrest, had + circulated in Tanglefoot as a measure of safety. They had fancied that + when the truth was developed it would be easy enough to declare the men + drunk or mistaken. The “revenuers” by that time would be far away, and the + pervasive security, always the sequence of a raid, successful or + otherwise, would once more promote the manufacture of the brush whisky. + The managers of the moon-shining interest had taken measures to guard + Wyatt's aged father from this fantasy of woe, but they had not dreamed + that the mountain coquette might care. He himself stood appalled that this + ghastly fable should delude his heart's beloved, amazed that it should + cost her one sigh, one sob. Her racking paroxysms of grief over this + gruesome figment of a grave he was humiliated to hear, he was woeful to + see. He felt that he was not worth one tear of the floods with which she + bewept his name, uttered in every cadence of tender regret that her + melancholy voice could compass. It must cease, she must know the truth at + whatever cost. He broke through the hedge and stood in the flicker of the + moonlight before her, pale, agitated, all unlike his wonted self. + </p> + <p> + She did not hear, amid the tumult of her weeping, the rustling of the + boughs, but some subtle sense took cognizance of his presence. She half + rose, and with one hand holding back her dense yellow hair, which had + fallen forward on her forehead, she looked up at him fearfully, + tremulously, with all the revolt of the corporeal creature for the essence + of the mysterious incorporeal. For a moment he could not speak. So much he + must needs explain. The next instant he was whelmed in the avalanche of + her words. + </p> + <p> + “Te hev kem!” she exclaimed in a sort of shrill ecstasy. “Te hev kem so + far ter hear the word that I would give my life ter hev said before. Te + knowed it in heaven! an' how like ye ter kem ter gin me the chanst ter say + it at last! How like the good heart of ye, worth all the hearts on yearth—an' + <i>buried hyar!</i>” + </p> + <p> + With her open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of + despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. “I love + ye! Oh, I <i>always</i> loved ye! I never keered fur nobody else! an' I + war tongue-tied, an' full of fool pride, an' faultin' ye fur yer ways; an' + I wouldn't gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin' ter hear. But now I kin + tell the pore ghost of ye—I kin tell the pore, pore ghost!” + </p> + <p> + She buried her swollen, tear-stained face in her hands, and shook her head + to and fro with the realization of the futility of late repentance. As she + once more lifted her eyes, she was obviously surprised to see him still + standing there, and the crisis seemed to restore to him the faculty of + speech. + </p> + <p> + “Minta Elladine,” he said huskily and prosaically, “I ain't dead!” + </p> + <p> + She sprang to her feet and stood gazing at him, intent and quivering. + </p> + <p> + “I be truly alive an' kicking an' ez worthless ez ever,” he went on. + </p> + <p> + She said not a word, but bent and pallid, and, quaking in every muscle, + stood peering beneath her hand, which still held back her hair. + </p> + <p> + “It's all a mistake,” he urged. “This ain't no grave. The top war dug a + leetle ter turn off a revenuer's suspicions o' the moonshiners. They put + that tale out.” + </p> + <p> + Still, evidently on the verge of collapse, she did not speak. + </p> + <p> + “Ye needn't be afeared ez I be goin' ter take fur true all I hearn ye say; + folks air gin ter vauntin' the dead,” he paused for a moment, remembering + the caustic comments over the deal of the cards, then added, “though I + reckon <i>I</i> hev hed some cur'ous 'speriences ez a harnt.” + </p> + <p> + She suddenly threw up both arms with a shrill scream, half nervous + exhaustion, half inexpressible delight. She swayed to and fro, almost + fainting, her balance failing. He caught her in his arms, and she leaned + sobbing against his breast. + </p> + <p> + “I stand ter every word of it,” she cried, her voice broken and lapsed + from control. “I love ye, an' I despise all the rest!” + </p> + <p> + “I be powerful wild,” he suggested contritely. + </p> + <p> + “I ain't keerin' ef ye be ez wild ez a deer.” + </p> + <p> + “But I'm goin' to quit gamesome company an' playin' kyerds an' sech. I + expec' ter mend my ways now,” he promised eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “Ye kin mend 'em or let 'em stay tore, jes ez ye please,” she declared + recklessly. “I ain't snatched my lovyer from the jaws o' death ter want + him otherwise; ye be plumb true-hearted, <i>I know</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “I mought ez well hev been buried in this grave fer the last ten year' fer + all the use I hev been,” he protested solemnly; “but I hev learnt a lesson + through bein' a harnt fer a while—I hev jes kem ter life. I'm goin' + ter <i>live</i> now. I'll make myself some use in the world, an' fust off + I be goin' ter hinder the murder of a man what they hev got trapped up + yander at the still.” + </p> + <p> + This initial devoir of his reformation, however, Wyatt found no easy + matter. The event had been craftily planned to seem an accident, a fall + from a cliff in pursuing the wagon, and only the most ardent and cogent + urgency on Wyatt's part prevailed at length. He argued that this + interpretation of the disaster would not satisfy the authorities. To take + the raider's life insured discovery, retribution. But as he had been + brought to the still in the night, it was obvious that if he were conveyed + under cover of darkness and by roundabout trails within striking distance + of the settlements, he could never again find his way to the locality in + the dense wilderness. In his detention he had necessarily learned nothing + fresh, for the only names he could have overheard had long been obnoxious + to suspicion of moonshining, and afforded no proof. Thus humanity, + masquerading as caution, finally triumphed, and the officer, blindfolded, + was conducted through devious and winding ways many miles distant, and + released within a day's travel of the county town. + </p> + <p> + Walter Wyatt was scarcely welcomed back to life by the denizens of the + cove generally with the enthusiasm attendant on the first moments of his + resuscitation, so to speak. He never forgot the solemn ecstasy of that + experience, and in later years he was wont to annul any menace of discord + with his wife by the warning, half jocose, half tender: “Ye hed better + mind; ye'll be sorry some day fur treatin' me so mean. Remember, I hev + viewed ye a-weepin' over my grave before now.” + </p> + <p> + A reformation, however complete and salutary, works no change of identity, + and although he developed into an orderly, industrious, law-abiding + citizen, his prankish temperament remained recognizable in the fantastic + fables which he delighted to recount at some genial fireside of what he + had seen and heard as a ghost. + </p> + <p> + “Pears like, Watt, ye hed more experiences whenst dead than living” said + an auditor, as these stories multiplied. + </p> + <p> + “I did, fur a fack,” Watt protested. “I war a powerful onchancy, onquiet + ghost. I even did my courtin' whilst in my reg'lar line o' business + a-hanatin' a graveyard.” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Unquiet Ghost, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + +***** This file should be named 23556-h.htm or 23556-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23556/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: His Unquiet Ghost + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23556] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +HIS UNQUIET GHOST + +By Charles Egbert Craddock + +1911 + + +The moon was high in the sky. The wind was laid. So silent was the vast +stretch of mountain wilderness, aglint with the dew, that the tinkle of +a rill far below in the black abyss seemed less a sound than an evidence +of the pervasive quietude, since so slight a thing, so distant, could +compass so keen a vibration. For an hour or more the three men who +lurked in the shadow of a crag in the narrow mountain-pass, heard +nothing else. When at last they caught the dull reverberation of a slow +wheel and the occasional metallic clank of a tire against a stone, the +vehicle was fully three miles distant by the winding road in the valley. +Time lagged. Only by imperceptible degrees the sound of deliberate +approach grew louder on the air as the interval of space lessened. At +length, above their ambush at the summit of the mountain's brow the +heads of horses came into view, distinct in the moonlight between the +fibrous pines and the vast expanse of the sky above the valley. Even +then there was renewed delay. The driver of the wagon paused to rest the +team. + +The three lurking men did not move; they scarcely ventured to breathe. +Only when there was no retrograde possible, no chance of escape, when +the vehicle was fairly on the steep declivity of the road, the precipice +sheer on one side, the wall of the ridge rising perpendicularly on the +other, did two of them, both revenue-raiders disguised as mountaineers, +step forth from the shadow. The other, the informer, a genuine +mountaineer, still skulked motionless in the darkness. The "revenuers," +ascending the road, maintained a slow, lunging gait, as if they had +toiled from far. + +Their abrupt appearance had the effect of a galvanic shock to the man +handling the reins, a stalwart, rubicund fellow, who visibly paled. He +drew up so suddenly as almost to throw the horses from their feet. + +"G'evenin'," ventured Browdie, the elder of the raiders, in a husky +voice affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a +mimic, and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people, +this gift greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed. +"Ye're haulin' late," he added, for the hour was close to midnight. + +"Yes, stranger; haulin' late, from Eskaqua--a needcessity." + +"What's yer cargo?" asked Browdie, seeming only ordinarily inquisitive. + +A sepulchral cadence was in the driver's voice, and the disguised +raiders noted that the three other men on the wagon had preserved, +throughout, a solemn silence. "What we-uns mus' all be one day, +stranger--a corpus." + +Browdie was stultified for a moment Then, sustaining his assumed +character, he said: "I hope it be nobody I know. I be fairly well +acquainted in Eskaqua, though I hail from down in Lonesome Cove. Who be +dead!" + +There was palpably a moment's hesitation before the spokesman replied: +"Watt Wyatt; died day 'fore yestiddy." + +At the words, one of the silent men in the wagon turned his face +suddenly, with such obvious amazement depicted upon it that it arrested +the attention of the "rev-enuers." This face was so individual that it +was not likely to be easily mistaken or forgotten. A wild, breezy look +it had, and a tricksy, incorporeal expression that might well befit +some fantastic, fabled thing of the woods. It was full of fine script of +elusive meanings, not registered in the lineaments of the prosaic man +of the day, though perchance of scant utility, not worth interpretation. +His full gray eyes were touched to glancing brilliancy by a moonbeam; +his long, fibrously floating brown hair was thrown backward; his +receding chin was peculiarly delicate; and though his well-knit frame +bespoke a hardy vigor, his pale cheek was soft and thin. All the rustic +grotesquery of garb and posture was cancelled by the deep shadow of a +bough, and his delicate face showed isolated in the moonlight. + +Browdie silently pondered his vague suspicions for a moment "Whar did he +die at?" he then demanded at a venture. + +"At his daddy's house, fur sure. Whar else?" responded the driver. "I +hev got what's lef' of him hyar in the coffin-box. We expected ter make +it ter Shiloh buryin'-ground 'fore dark; but the road is middlin' heavy, +an' 'bout five mile' back Ben cast a shoe. The funeral warn't over much +'fore noon." + +"Whyn't they bury him in Eskaqua, whar he died!" persisted Browdie. + +"Waal, they planned ter bury him alongside his mother an' gran'dad, what +used ter live in Tanglefoot Cove. But we air wastin' time hyar, an' we +hev got none ter spare. Gee, Ben! Git up, John!" + +The wagon gave a lurch; the horses, holding back in bracing attitudes +far from the pole, went teetering down the steep slant, the locked wheel +dragging heavily; the four men sat silent, two in slouching postures at +the head of the coffin; the third, with the driver, was at its foot. It +seemed drearily suggestive, the last journey of this humble mortality, +in all the splendid environment of the mountains, under the vast +expansions of the aloof skies, in the mystic light of the unnoting moon. + +"Is this bona-fide?" asked Browdie, with a questioning glance at the +informer, who had at length crept forth. + +"I dunno," sullenly responded the mountaineer. He had acquainted the +two officers, who were of a posse of revenue-raiders hovering in the +vicinity, with the mysterious circumstance that a freighted wagon now +and then made a midnight transit across these lonely ranges. He himself +had heard only occasionally in a wakeful hour the roll of heavy wheels, +but he interpreted this as the secret transportation of brush whisky +from the still to its market. He had thought to fix the transgression +on an old enemy of his own, long suspected of moonshining; but he was +acquainted with none of the youngsters on the wagon, at whom he had +peered cautiously from behind the rocks. His actuating motive in giving +information to the emissaries of the government had been the rancor of +an old feud, and his detection meant certain death. He had not expected +the revenue-raiders to be outnumbered by the supposed moonshiners, and +he would not fight in the open. He had no sentiment of fealty to the +law, and the officers glanced at each other in uncertainty. + +"This evidently is not the wagon in question," said Browdie, +disappointed. + +"I'll follow them a bit," volunteered Bonan, the younger and the more +active of the two officers. "Seems to me they'll bear watching." + +Indeed, as the melancholy cortege fared down and down the steep road, +dwindling in the sheeny distance, the covert and half-suppressed +laughter of the sepulchral escort was of so keen a relish that it was +well that the scraping of the locked wheel aided the distance to mask +the incongruous sound. + +"What ailed you-uns ter name _me_ as the corpus, 'Gene Barker?" demanded +Walter Wyatt, when he had regained the capacity of coherent speech. + +"Oh, I hed ter do suddint murder on somebody," declared the driver, all +bluff and reassured and red-faced again, "an' I couldn't think quick +of nobody else. Besides, I helt a grudge agin' you fer not stuffin' mo' +straw 'twixt them jimmyjohns in the coffin-box." + +"That's a fac'. Ye air too triflin' ter be let ter live, Watt," cried +one of their comrades. "I hearn them jugs clash tergether in the +coffin-box when 'Gene checked the team up suddint, I tell you. An' them +men sure 'peared ter me powerful suspectin'." + +"_I_ hearn the clash of them jimmyjohns," chimed in the driver. "I +really thunk my hour war come. Some informer must hev set them men ter +spyin' round fer moonshine." + +"Oh, surely nobody wouldn't dare," urged one of the group, uneasily; for +the identity of an informer was masked in secrecy, and his fate, when +discovered, was often gruesome. + +"They couldn't hev noticed the clash of them jimmyjohns, nohow," +declared the negligent Watt, nonchalantly. "But namin' _me_ fur the dead +one! Supposin' they air revenuers fur true, an' hed somebody along, hid +out in the bresh, ez war acquainted with me by sight----" + +"Then they'd hev been skeered out'n thar boots, that's all," interrupted +the self-sufficient 'Gene. "They would hev 'lowed they hed viewed +yer brazen ghost, bold ez brass, standin' at the head of yer own +coffin-box." + +"Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn't +acquainted with _me_," persisted Watt, with his unique sense of injury. + +Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. "They would hev +jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an' at-tendin' him ter his long +home." + +"'Gene don't keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt," one of +the others suggested tactlessly, "'count o' Minta Elladine Biggs." + +Eugene Barker's off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity +and his evident rancor as he declared: "_I_ ain't carin' fur sech ez +Watt Wyatt. An' they _do_ say in the cove that Minta Elladine Biggs hev +gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin' +kyerds, a-bet-tin' his money, drinkin' apple-jack, an' sech." + +The newly constituted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if +to retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes +widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he +pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of-the coffin was the +simulacrum of the figure of aman. + +One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned +a significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a +fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of +a more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence +could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted +his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an +indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at +that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box. + +The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed. +The number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at +least one of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the +precipice and the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had +gradually dwindled to a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and +there washed out by recent rains, and one of these indentations might +have afforded an active man access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had +evidently kept abreast of them, speeding along in great leaps through +the lush growth of huckleberry bushes, wild grasses, pawpaw thickets, +silvered by the moon, all fringing the great forests that had given way +on the shelving verge of the steeps where the road ran. Had he overheard +their unguarded, significant words? Who could divine, so silent were the +windless mountains, so deep a-dream the darksome woods, so spellbound +the mute and mystic moonlight? + +The group maintained a cautious reticence now, each revolving the +problematic disclosure of their secret, each canvassing the question +whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy +proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they +venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in midstream and +stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, +as the team manifested an inclination to drink in transit; and thence, +as he stood thus perched, he gazed to and fro, the stretch of dark and +lustrous ripples baffling all approach within ear-shot, the watering +of the horses justifying the pause and cloaking its significance to any +distant observer. + +But the interval was indeed limited; the mental processes of such men +are devoid of complexity, and their decisions prompt. They advanced few +alternatives; their prime object was to be swiftly rid of the coffin +and its inculpating contents, and with the "revenuer" so hard on their +heels this might seem a troublous problem enough. + +"Put it whar a coffin b'longs--in the churchyard," said Wyatt; for at a +considerable distance beyond the rise of the opposite bank could be +seen a barren clearing in which stood a gaunt, bare, little white frame +building that served all the country-side for its infrequent religious +services. + +"We couldn't dig a grave before that spy--ef he be a revenuer sure +enough--could overhaul us," Eugene Barker objected. + +"We could turn the yearth right smart, though," persisted Wyatt, for +pickax and shovel had been brought in the wagon for the sake of an +aspect of verisimilitude and to mask their true intent. + +Eugene Barker acceded to this view. "That's the dinctum--dig a few jes +fer a blind. We kin slip the coffin-box under the church-house 'fore he +gits in sight,--he'll be feared ter follow too close,--an' leave it thar +till the other boys kin wagon it ter the cross-roads' store ter-morrer +night." + +The horses, hitherto held to the sober gait of funeral travel, were now +put to a speedy trot, unmindful of whatever impression of flight the +pace might give to the revenue-raider in pursuit. The men were soon +engrossed in their deceptive enterprise in the churchyard, plying pickax +and shovel for dear life; now and again they paused to listen vainly +for the sound of stealthy approach. They knew that there was the most +precarious and primitive of foot-bridges across the deep stream, to +traverse which would cost an unaccustomed wayfarer both time and +pains; thus the interval was considerable before the resonance of rapid +footfalls gave token that their pursuer had found himself obliged to +sprint smartly along the country road to keep any hope of ever again' +viewing the wagon which the intervening water-course had withdrawn +from his sight. That this hope had grown tenuous was evident in his +relinquishment of his former caution, for when they again caught a +glimpse of him he was forging along in the middle of the road without +any effort at concealment. But as the wagon appeared in the perspective, +stationary, hitched to the hedge of the graveyard, he recurred to his +previous methods. The four men still within the in-closure, now busied +in shovelling the earth back again into the excavation they had so +swiftly made, covertly watched him as he skulked into the shadow of the +wayside. The little "church-house," with all its windows whitely aglare +in the moonlight, reflected the pervasive sheen, and silent, spectral, +remote, it seemed as if it might well harbor at times its ghastly +neighbors from the quiet cemetery without, dimly ranging themselves once +more in the shadowy ranks of its pews or grimly stalking down the drear +and deserted aisles. The fact that the rising ground toward the rear of +the building necessitated a series of steps at the entrance, enabled the +officer to mask behind this tall flight his crouching approach, and thus +he ensconced himself in the angle between the wall and the steps, and +looked forth in fancied security. + +The shadows multiplied the tale of the dead that the head-boards kept, +each similitude askew in the moonlight on the turf below the slanting +monument To judge by the motions of the men engaged in the burial and +the mocking antics of their silhouettes on the ground, it must have been +obvious to the spectator that they were already filling in the earth. +The interment may have seemed to him suspiciously swift, but the +possibility was obvious that the grave might have been previously dug +in anticipation of their arrival. It was plain that he was altogether +unprepared for the event when they came slouching forth to the wagon, +and the stalwart and red-faced driver, with no manifestation of +surprise, hailed him as he still crouched in his lurking-place. "Hello, +stranger! Warn't that you-uns runnin' arter the wagon a piece back +yonder jes a while ago?" + +The officer rose to his feet, with an intent look both dismayed and +embarrassed. He did not venture on speech; he merely acceded with a nod. + +"Ye want a lift, I reckon." + +The stranger was hampered by the incongruity between his rustic garb, +common to the coves, and his cultivated intonation; for, unlike his +comrade Browdie, he had no mimetic faculties whatever. Nevertheless, he +was now constrained to "face the music." + +"I didn't want to interrupt you," he said, seeking such excuse as due +consideration for the circumstances might afford; "but I'd like to ask +where I could get lodging for the night." + +"What's yer name?" demanded Barker, unceremoniously. + +"Francis Bonan," the raider replied, with more assurance. Then he added, +by way of explaining his necessity, "I'm a stranger hereabouts." + +"Ye air so," assented the sarcastic 'Gene. "Ye ain't even acquainted +with yer own clothes. Ye be a town man." + +"Well, I'm not the first man who has had to hide out," Ronan parried, +seeking to justify his obvious disguise. + +"Shot somebody?" asked 'Gene, with an apparent accession of interest. + +"It's best for me not to tell." + +"So be." 'Gene acquiesced easily. "Waal, ef ye kin put up with sech +accommodations ez our'n, I'll take ye home with me." + +Ronan stood aghast. But there was no door of retreat open. He was alone +and helpless. He could not conceal the fact that the turn affairs had +taken was equally unexpected and terrifying to him, and the moonshiners, +keenly watchful, were correspondingly elated to discern that he had +surely no reinforcements within reach to nerve him to resistance or +to menace their liberty. He had evidently followed them too far, too +recklessly; perhaps without the consent and against the counsel of his +comrades, perhaps even without their knowledge of his movements and +intention. + +Now and again as the wagon jogged on and on toward their distant haven, +the moonlight gradually dulling to dawn, Wyatt gave the stranger +a wondering, covert glance, vaguely, shrinkingly curious as to the +sentiments of a man vacillating between the suspicion of capture and the +recognition of a simple hospitality without significance or danger. The +man's face appealed to him, young, alert, intelligent, earnest, and +the anguish of doubt and anxiety it expressed went to his heart. In the +experience of his sylvan life as a hunter Wyatt's peculiar and subtle +temperament evolved certain fine-spun distinctions which were unique; a +trapped thing had a special appeal to his commiseration that a creature +ruthlessly slaughtered in the open was not privileged to claim. He did +not accurately and in words discriminate the differences, but he felt +that the captive had sounded all the gamut of hope and despair, shared +the gradations of an appreciated sorrow that makes all souls akin and +that even lifts the beast to the plane of brotherhood, the bond of +emotional woe. He had often with no other or better reason liberated +the trophy of his snare, calling after the amazed and franticly +fleeing creature, "Bye-bye, Buddy!" with peals of his whimsical, joyous +laughter. + +He was experiencing now a similar sequence of sentiments in noting the +wild-eyed eagerness with which the captured raider took obvious heed of +every minor point of worthiness that might mask the true character of +his entertainers. But, indeed, these deceptive hopes might have been +easily maintained by one not so desirous of reassurance when, in the +darkest hour before the dawn, they reached a large log-cabin sequestered +in dense woods, and he found himself an inmate of a simple, typical +mountain household. It held an exceedingly venerable grandfather, +wielding his infirmities as a rod of iron; a father and mother, hearty, +hospitable, subservient to the aged tyrant, but keeping in filial check +a family of sons and daughters-in-law, with an underfoot delegation of +grandchildren, who seemed to spend their time in a bewildering manouver +of dashing out at one door to dash in at another. A tumultuous rain +had set in shortly after dawn, with lightning and wind,--"the tail of a +harricane," as the host called it,--and a terrible bird the actual storm +must have been to have a tail of such dimensions. There was no getting +forth, no living creature of free will "took water" in this elemental +crisis. The numerous dogs crowded the children away from the hearth, +and the hens strolled about the large living-room, clucking to scurrying +broods. Even one of the horses tramped up on the porch and looked in +ever and anon, solicitous of human company. + +"I brung Ben up by hand, like a bottle-fed baby," the hostess +apologized, "an' he ain't never fund out fur sure that he ain't folks." + +There seemed no possible intimation of moonshine in this entourage, and +the coffin filled with jugs, a-wagoning from some distillers' den in the +range to the cross-roads' store, might well have been accounted only the +vain phantasm of an overtired brain surcharged with the vexed problems +of the revenue service. The disguised revenue-raider was literally +overcome with drowsiness, the result of his exertions and his vigils, +and observing this, his host gave him one of the big feather beds under +the low slant of the eaves in the roof-room, where the other men, who +had been out all night, also slept the greater portion of the day. In +fact, it was dark when Wyatt wakened, and, leaving the rest still torpid +with slumber and fatigue, descended to the large main room of the cabin. + +The callow members of the household had retired to rest, but the elders +of the band of moonshiners were up and still actively astir, and Wyatt +experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or +secrecy--the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of +apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. +When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean +air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous +odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most +unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly +immune to suspicion, for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary +mountain cabin. Thus the infraction of the revenue law went on securely +and continuously beneath the placid, simple, domestic life, with its +reverent care for the very aged and its tender nurture of the very +young. + +It was significant, indeed, that the industry should not be +pretermitted, however, when a stranger was within the gates. The reason +to Wyatt, familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought, +was only too plain. They intended that the "revenuer" should never go +forth to tell the tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow +his trail, either losing it in the wilderness or from ignorance of +his intention. He had put himself hopelessly into the power of +these desperate men, whom his escape or liberation would menace +with incarceration for a long term as Federal prisoners in distant +penitentiaries, if, indeed, they were not already answerable to the law +for some worse crime than illicit distilling. His murder would be the +extreme of brutal craft, so devised as to seem an accident, against the +possibility of future investigation. + +The reflection turned Wyatt deathly cold, he who could not bear unmoved +the plea of a wild thing's eye. He sturdily sought to pull himself +together. It was none of his decree; it was none of his deed, he argued. +The older moonshiners, who managed all the details of the enterprise, +would direct the event with absolute authority and the immutability of +fate. But whatever should be done, he revolted from any knowledge of +it, as from any share in the act. He had risen to leave the place, all +strange of aspect now, metamorphosed,--various disorderly details of +the prohibited industry ever and anon surging up from the still-room +below,--when a hoarse voice took cognizance of his intention with a +remonstrance. + +"Why, Watt Wyatt, _ye_ can't go out in the cove. Ye air dead! Ye will +let that t'other revenue-raider ye seen into the secret o' the bresh +whisky in our wagon ef ye air viewed about whenst 'Gene hev spread the +report that ye air dead. Wait till them raiders hev cleared out of the +kentry." + +The effort at detention, to interfere with his liberty, added redoubled +impetus to Wyatt 's desire to be gone. He suddenly devised a cogent +necessity. "I be feared my dad mought hear that fool tale. I ain't much +loss, but dad would feel it." + +"Oh, I sent Jack thar ter tell him better whenst he drove ter mill +ter-day ter git the meal fer the mash. Jack made yer dad understand +'bout yer sudden demise." + +"Oh, yeh," interposed the glib Jack; "an' he said ez _he_ couldn't abide +sech jokes." + +"Shucks!" cried the filial Wyatt. "Dad war full fresky himself in his +young days; I hev hearn his old frien's say so." + +"I tried ter slick things over," said the diplomatic Jack. "I 'lowed +young folks war giddy by nature. I 'lowed 't war jes a flash o' fun. +An' he say: 'Flash o' fun be con-sarned! My son is more like a flash o' +lightning; ez suddint an' mischeevious an' totally ondesirable.'" + +The reproach obviously struck home, for Wyatt maintained a disconsolate +silence for a time. At length, apparently goaded by his thoughts to +attempt a defense, he remonstrated: + +"Nobody ever war dead less of his own free will. I never elected ter +be a harnt. 'Gene Barker hed no right ter nominate _me_ fer the dear +departed, nohow." + +One of the uncouth younger fellows, his shoulders laden with a sack of +meal, paused on his way from the porch to the trap-door to look up from +beneath his burden with a sly grin as he said, "'Gene war wishin' it war +true, that's why." + +"'Count o' Minta Elladine Riggs," gaily chimed in another. + +"But 'Gene needn't gredge Watt foothold on this yearth fer sech; _she_ +ain't keerin' whether Watt lives or dies," another contributed to the +rough, rallying fun. + +But Wyatt was of sensitive fibre. He had flushed angrily; his eyes were +alight; a bitter retort was trembling on his lips when one of the elder +Barkers, discriminating the elements of an uncontrollable fracas, seized +on the alternative. + +"Could you-uns _sure_ be back hyar by daybreak, Watt!" he asked, fixing +the young fellow with a stern eye. + +"No 'spectable ghost roams around arter sun-up," cried Wyatt, fairly +jovial at the prospect of liberation. + +"Ye mus' be heedful not ter be viewed," the senior admonished him. + +"I be goin' ter slip about keerful like a reg'lar, stiddy-goin' harnt, +an' eavesdrop a bit. It's worth livin' a hard life ter view how a +feller's friends will take his demise." + +"I reckon ye kin make out ter meet the wagin kemin' back from the +cross-roads' store. It went out this evenin' with that coffin full of +jugs that ye lef' las' night under the church-house, whenst 'Gene seen +you-uns war suspicioned. They will hev time ter git ter the cross-roads +with the whisky on' back little arter midnight, special' ez we-uns hev +got the raider that spied out the job hyar fast by the leg." + +The mere mention of the young prisoner rendered Wyatt the more eager +to be gone, to be out of sight and sound. But he had no agency in +the disaster, he urged against some inward clamor of protest; the +catastrophe was the logical result of the fool-hardiness of the officer +in following these desperate men with no backing, with no power +to apprehend or hold, relying on his flimsy disguise, and risking +delivering himself into their hands, fettered as he was with the +knowledge of his discovery of their secret. + +"It's nothin' ter _me_, nohow," Wyatt was continually repeating to +himself, though when he sprang through the door he could scarcely draw +his breath because of some mysterious, invisible clutch at his throat. + +He sought to ascribe this symptom to the density of the pervasive fog +without, that impenetrably cloaked all the world; one might wonder how a +man could find his way through the opaque white vapor. It was, however, +an accustomed medium to the young mountaineer, and his feet, too, had +something of that unclassified muscular instinct, apart from reason, +which guides in an oft-trodden path. Once he came to a halt, from no +uncertainty of locality, but to gaze apprehensively through the blank, +white mists over a shuddering shoulder. "I wonder ef thar be any other +harnts aloose ter-night, a-boguing through the fog an' the moon," he +speculated. Presently he went on again, shaking his head sagely. "I +ain't wantin' ter collogue with sech," he averred cautiously. + +Occasionally the moonlight fell in expansive splendor through a rift in +the white vapor; amidst the silver glintings a vague, illusory panorama +of promontory and island, bay and inlet, far ripplings of gleaming +deeps, was presented like some magic reminiscence, some ethereal replica +of the past, the simulacrum of the seas of these ancient coves, long +since ebbed away and vanished. + +The sailing moon visibly rocked, as the pulsing tides of the cloud-ocean +rose and fell, and ever and anon this supernal craft was whelmed in +its surgings, and once more came majestically into view, freighted with +fancies and heading for the haven of the purple western shores. + +In one of these clearances of the mists a light of an alien type caught +the eye of the wandering spectre--a light, red, mundane, of prosaic +suggestion. It filtered through the crevice of a small batten shutter. + +The ghost paused, his head speculatively askew. "Who sits so late at the +forge!" he marvelled, for he was now near the base of the mountain, and +he recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its roof +aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As +he neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a +deep, gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words +made the matter plain. + +"High, Low, Jack, _and_ game! Fork! Fork!" Once more there arose a high +falsetto shriek of jubilant laughter. + +Walter Wyatt crept noiselessly down the steep slant toward the shutter. +He had no sense of intrusion, for he was often one of the merry blades +wont to congregate at the forge at night and take a hand at cards, +despite the adverse sentiment of the cove and the vigilance of the +constable of the district, bent on enforcing the laws prohibiting +gaming. As Wyatt stood at the crevice of the shutter the whole interior +was distinct before him--the disabled wagon-wheels against the walls, +the horse-shoes on a rod across the window, the great hood of the forge, +the silent bellows, with its long, motionless handle. A kerosene lamp, +perched on the elevated hearth of the forge, illumined the group of wild +young mountaineers clustered about a barrel on the head of which the +cards were dealt. There were no chairs; one of the gamesters sat on a +keg of nails; another on an inverted splint basket; two on a rude bench +that was wont to be placed outside the door for the accommodation +of customers waiting for a horse to be shod or a plow to be laid. An +onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his ambition of admission +to the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this coign of vantage +beheld all the outspread landscape of the "hands." More than once his +indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his survey of the +cards menaced him with a broken head. More innocuous to the interests of +the play was a wight humbly ensconced on the shoeing-stool, which +barely brought his head to the level of the board; but as he was densely +ignorant of the game, he took no disadvantage from his lowly posture. +His head was red, and as it moved erratically about in the gloom, +Watt Wyatt thought for a moment that it was the smith's red setter. He +grinned as he resolved that some day he would tell the fellow this as +a pleasing gibe; but the thought was arrested by the sound of his own +name. + +"Waal, sir," said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, "I s'pose +ye hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's takin' off." + +"An' none too soon, sartain." A sour visage was glimpsed beneath the +wide brim of the speaker's hat. + +"Waal," drawled the semblance of the setter from deep in the +clare-obscure, "Watt war jes a fool from lack o' sense." + +"That kind o' fool can't be cured," said another of the players. Then +he sharply adjuxed the dealer. "Look out what ye be doin'! Ye hev gimme +_two_ kyerds." + +"'Gene Barker will git ter marry Minta Elladine Biggs now, I reckon," +suggested the man on the anvil. + +"An' I'll dance at the weddin' with right good will an' a nimble toe," +declared the dealer, vivaciously. "I'll be glad ter see that couple +settled. That gal couldn't make up her mind ter let Walter Wyatt go, an' +yit no woman in her senses would hev been willin, ter marry him. He war +ez unresponsible ez--ez--fox-fire." + +"An' ez onstiddy ez a harricane," commented another. + +"An' no more account than a mole in the yearth," said a third. + +The ghost at the window listened in aghast dismay and became pale in +sober truth, for these boon companions he had accounted the best friends +he had in the world. They had no word of regret, no simple human pity; +even that facile meed of casual praise that he was "powerful pleasant +company" was withheld. And for these and such as these he had bartered +the esteem of the community at large and his filial duty and obedience; +had spurned the claims of good citizenship and placed himself in +jeopardy of the law; had forfeited the hand of the woman he loved. + +"Minta Elladine Biggs ain't keerin' nohow fer sech ez Watt," said the +semblance of the setter, with a knowing nod of his red head. "I war up +thar at the mill whenst the news kem ter-day, an' she war thar ter git +some seconds. I hev hearn women go off in high-strikes fer a lovyer's +death--even Mis' Simton, though hern was jes her husband, an 'a mighty +pore one at that. But Minta Elladine jes listened quiet an' composed, +an' never said one word." + +The batten shutter was trembling in the ghost's hand. In fact, so +convulsive was his grasp that it shook the hook from the staple, and the +shutter slowly opened as he stood at gaze. + +Perhaps it was the motion that attracted the attention of the dealer, +perhaps the influx of a current of fresh air. He lifted his casual +glance and beheld, distinct in the light from the kerosene lamp +and imposed on the white background of the mist, that familiar and +individual face, pallid, fixed, strange, with an expression that he had +never seen it wear hitherto. One moment of suspended faculties, and he +sprang up with a wild cry that filled the little shanty with its shrill +terror. The others gazed astounded upon him, then followed the direction +of his starting eyes, and echoed his frantic fright. There was a wild +scurry toward the door. The overturning of the lamp was imminent, but +it still burned calmly on the elevated hearth, while the shoeing-stool +capsized in the rush, and the red head of its lowly occupant was lowlier +still, rolling on the dirt floor. Even with this disadvantage, however, +he was not the hindmost, and reached the exit unhurt. The only specific +damage wrought by the panic was to the big barnlike doors of the place. +They had been stanchly barred against the possible intrusion of +the constable of the district, and the fastenings in so critical an +emergency could not be readily loosed. The united weight and impetus of +the onset burst the flimsy doors into fragments, and as the party fled +in devious directions in the misty moonlight, the calm radiance entered +at the wide-spread portal and illuminated the vacant place where late +had been so merry a crew. + +Walter Wyatt had known the time when the incident would have held an +incomparable relish for him. But now he gazed all forlorn into the empty +building with a single thought in his mind. "Not one of 'em keered a +mite! Nare good word, nare sigh, not even, 'Fare ye well, old mate!'" + +His breast heaved, his eyes flashed. + +"An' I hev loant money ter Jim, whenst I hed need myself; an' holped +George in the mill, when his wrist war sprained, without a cent o' pay; +an' took the blame when 'Dolphus war faulted by his dad fur lamin' the +horse-critter; an' stood back an' let Pete git the meat whenst we-uns +shot fur beef, bein' he hev got a wife an' chil'ren ter feed. All +_leetle_ favors, but nare _leetle_ word." + +He had turned from the window and was tramping absently down the road, +all unmindful of the skulking methods of the spectral gentry. If he had +chanced to be observed, his little farce, that had yet an element of +tragedy in its presentation, must soon have reached its close. But +the fog hung about him like a cloak, and when the moon cast aside the +vapors, it was in a distant silver sheen illumining the far reaches of +the valley. Only when its light summoned forth a brilliant and glancing +reflection on a lower level, as if a thousand sabers were unsheathed at +a word, he recognized the proximity of the river and came to a sudden +halt. + +"Whar is this fool goin'?" he demanded angrily of space. "To the +graveyard, I declar', ez ef I war a harnt fur true, an' buried sure +enough. An' I wish I war. I wish I war." + +He realized, after a moment's consideration, that he had been +unconsciously actuated by the chance of meeting the wagon, returning by +this route from the cross-roads' store. He was tired, disheartened; his +spirit was spent; he would be glad of the lift. He reflected, +however, that he must needs wait some time, for this was the date of a +revival-meeting at the little church, and the distillers' wagon would +lag, that its belated night journey might not be subjected to the +scrutiny and comment of the church-goers. Indeed, even now Walter Wyatt +saw in the distance the glimmer of a lantern, intimating homeward-bound +worshipers not yet out of sight. + +"The saints kep' it up late ter-night," he commented. + +He resolved to wait till the roll of wheels should tell of the return of +the moonshiners' empty wagon. + +He crossed the river on the little footbridge and took his way languidly +along the road toward the deserted church. He was close to the hedge +that grew thick and rank about the little inclosure when he suddenly +heard the sound of lamentation from within. He drew back precipitately, +with a sense of sacrilege, but the branches of the unpruned growth had +caught in his sleeve, and he sought to disengage the cloth without such +rustling stir as might disturb or alarm the mourner, who had evidently +lingered here, after the dispersal of the congregation, for a moment's +indulgence of grief and despair. He had a glimpse through the shaking +boughs and the flickering mist of a woman's figure kneeling on the +crude red clods of a new-made grave. A vague, anxious wonder as to the +deceased visited him, for in the sparsely settled districts a strong +community sense prevails. Suddenly in a choking gust of sobs and burst +of tears he recognized his own name in a voice of which every inflection +was familiar. For a moment his heart seemed to stand still. His brain +whirled with a realization of this unforeseen result of the fantastic +story of his death in Eskaqua Cove, which the moonshiners, on the verge +of detection and arrest, had circulated in Tanglefoot as a measure of +safety. They had fancied that when the truth was developed it would be +easy enough to declare the men drunk or mistaken. The "revenuers" by +that time would be far away, and the pervasive security, always the +sequence of a raid, successful or otherwise, would once more promote +the manufacture of the brush whisky. The managers of the moon-shining +interest had taken measures to guard Wyatt's aged father from this +fantasy of woe, but they had not dreamed that the mountain coquette +might care. He himself stood appalled that this ghastly fable should +delude his heart's beloved, amazed that it should cost her one sigh, +one sob. Her racking paroxysms of grief over this gruesome figment of a +grave he was humiliated to hear, he was woeful to see. He felt that he +was not worth one tear of the floods with which she bewept his name, +uttered in every cadence of tender regret that her melancholy voice +could compass. It must cease, she must know the truth at whatever cost. +He broke through the hedge and stood in the flicker of the moonlight +before her, pale, agitated, all unlike his wonted self. + +She did not hear, amid the tumult of her weeping, the rustling of the +boughs, but some subtle sense took cognizance of his presence. She half +rose, and with one hand holding back her dense yellow hair, which +had fallen forward on her forehead, she looked up at him fearfully, +tremulously, with all the revolt of the corporeal creature for the +essence of the mysterious incorporeal. For a moment he could not speak. +So much he must needs explain. The next instant he was whelmed in the +avalanche of her words. + +"Te hev kem!" she exclaimed in a sort of shrill ecstasy. "Te hev kem so +far ter hear the word that I would give my life ter hev said before. Te +knowed it in heaven! an' how like ye ter kem ter gin me the chanst ter +say it at last! How like the good heart of ye, worth all the hearts on +yearth--an' _buried hyar!_" + +With her open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of +despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. "I +love ye! Oh, I _always_ loved ye! I never keered fur nobody else! an' I +war tongue-tied, an' full of fool pride, an' faultin' ye fur yer ways; +an' I wouldn't gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin' ter hear. But now +I kin tell the pore ghost of ye--I kin tell the pore, pore ghost!" + +She buried her swollen, tear-stained face in her hands, and shook her +head to and fro with the realization of the futility of late repentance. +As she once more lifted her eyes, she was obviously surprised to see +him still standing there, and the crisis seemed to restore to him the +faculty of speech. + +"Minta Elladine," he said huskily and prosaically, "I ain't dead!" + +She sprang to her feet and stood gazing at him, intent and quivering. + +"I be truly alive an' kicking an' ez worthless ez ever," he went on. + +She said not a word, but bent and pallid, and, quaking in every muscle, +stood peering beneath her hand, which still held back her hair. + +"It's all a mistake," he urged. "This ain't no grave. The top war dug a +leetle ter turn off a revenuer's suspicions o' the moonshiners. They put +that tale out." + +Still, evidently on the verge of collapse, she did not speak. + +"Ye needn't be afeared ez I be goin' ter take fur true all I hearn +ye say; folks air gin ter vauntin' the dead," he paused for a moment, +remembering the caustic comments over the deal of the cards, then added, +"though I reckon _I_ hev hed some cur'ous 'speriences ez a harnt." + +She suddenly threw up both arms with a shrill scream, half nervous +exhaustion, half inexpressible delight. She swayed to and fro, almost +fainting, her balance failing. He caught her in his arms, and she leaned +sobbing against his breast. + +"I stand ter every word of it," she cried, her voice broken and lapsed +from control. "I love ye, an' I despise all the rest!" + +"I be powerful wild," he suggested contritely. + +"I ain't keerin' ef ye be ez wild ez a deer." + +"But I'm goin' to quit gamesome company an' playin' kyerds an' sech. I +expec' ter mend my ways now," he promised eagerly. + +"Ye kin mend 'em or let 'em stay tore, jes ez ye please," she declared +recklessly. "I ain't snatched my lovyer from the jaws o' death ter want +him otherwise; ye be plumb true-hearted, _I know_." + +"I mought ez well hev been buried in this grave fer the last ten year' +fer all the use I hev been," he protested solemnly; "but I hev learnt +a lesson through bein' a harnt fer a while--I hev jes kem ter life. I'm +goin' ter _live_ now. I'll make myself some use in the world, an' fust +off I be goin' ter hinder the murder of a man what they hev got trapped +up yander at the still." + +This initial devoir of his reformation, however, Wyatt found no easy +matter. The event had been craftily planned to seem an accident, a fall +from a cliff in pursuing the wagon, and only the most ardent and +cogent urgency on Wyatt's part prevailed at length. He argued that this +interpretation of the disaster would not satisfy the authorities. To +take the raider's life insured discovery, retribution. But as he had +been brought to the still in the night, it was obvious that if he +were conveyed under cover of darkness and by roundabout trails within +striking distance of the settlements, he could never again find his +way to the locality in the dense wilderness. In his detention he had +necessarily learned nothing fresh, for the only names he could have +overheard had long been obnoxious to suspicion of moonshining, and +afforded no proof. Thus humanity, masquerading as caution, finally +triumphed, and the officer, blindfolded, was conducted through devious +and winding ways many miles distant, and released within a day's travel +of the county town. + +Walter Wyatt was scarcely welcomed back to life by the denizens of the +cove generally with the enthusiasm attendant on the first moments of his +resuscitation, so to speak. He never forgot the solemn ecstasy of +that experience, and in later years he was wont to annul any menace of +discord with his wife by the warning, half jocose, half tender: "Ye hed +better mind; ye'll be sorry some day fur treatin' me so mean. Remember, +I hev viewed ye a-weepin' over my grave before now." + +A reformation, however complete and salutary, works no change of +identity, and although he developed into an orderly, industrious, +law-abiding citizen, his prankish temperament remained recognizable +in the fantastic fables which he delighted to recount at some genial +fireside of what he had seen and heard as a ghost. + +"Pears like, Watt, ye hed more experiences whenst dead than living" said +an auditor, as these stories multiplied. + +"I did, fur a fack," Watt protested. "I war a powerful onchancy, onquiet +ghost. I even did my courtin' whilst in my reg'lar line o' business +a-hanatin' a graveyard." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Unquiet Ghost, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + +***** This file should be named 23556.txt or 23556.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23556/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: His Unquiet Ghost + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23556] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + HIS UNQUIET GHOST + </h1> + <h2> + By Charles Egbert Craddock <br /> <br /> 1911 + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + The moon was high in the sky. The wind was laid. So silent was the vast + stretch of mountain wilderness, aglint with the dew, that the tinkle of a + rill far below in the black abyss seemed less a sound than an evidence of + the pervasive quietude, since so slight a thing, so distant, could compass + so keen a vibration. For an hour or more the three men who lurked in the + shadow of a crag in the narrow mountain-pass, heard nothing else. When at + last they caught the dull reverberation of a slow wheel and the occasional + metallic clank of a tire against a stone, the vehicle was fully three + miles distant by the winding road in the valley. Time lagged. Only by + imperceptible degrees the sound of deliberate approach grew louder on the + air as the interval of space lessened. At length, above their ambush at + the summit of the mountain's brow the heads of horses came into view, + distinct in the moonlight between the fibrous pines and the vast expanse + of the sky above the valley. Even then there was renewed delay. The driver + of the wagon paused to rest the team. + </p> + <p> + The three lurking men did not move; they scarcely ventured to breathe. + Only when there was no retrograde possible, no chance of escape, when the + vehicle was fairly on the steep declivity of the road, the precipice sheer + on one side, the wall of the ridge rising perpendicularly on the other, + did two of them, both revenue-raiders disguised as mountaineers, step + forth from the shadow. The other, the informer, a genuine mountaineer, + still skulked motionless in the darkness. The “revenuers,” ascending the + road, maintained a slow, lunging gait, as if they had toiled from far. + </p> + <p> + Their abrupt appearance had the effect of a galvanic shock to the man + handling the reins, a stalwart, rubicund fellow, who visibly paled. He + drew up so suddenly as almost to throw the horses from their feet. + </p> + <p> + “G'evenin',” ventured Browdie, the elder of the raiders, in a husky voice + affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a mimic, + and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people, this gift + greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed. “Ye're + haulin' late,” he added, for the hour was close to midnight. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, stranger; haulin' late, from Eskaqua—a needcessity.” + </p> + <p> + “What's yer cargo?” asked Browdie, seeming only ordinarily inquisitive. + </p> + <p> + A sepulchral cadence was in the driver's voice, and the disguised raiders + noted that the three other men on the wagon had preserved, throughout, a + solemn silence. “What we-uns mus' all be one day, stranger—a + corpus.” + </p> + <p> + Browdie was stultified for a moment Then, sustaining his assumed + character, he said: “I hope it be nobody I know. I be fairly well + acquainted in Eskaqua, though I hail from down in Lonesome Cove. Who be + dead!” + </p> + <p> + There was palpably a moment's hesitation before the spokesman replied: + “Watt Wyatt; died day 'fore yestiddy.” + </p> + <p> + At the words, one of the silent men in the wagon turned his face suddenly, + with such obvious amazement depicted upon it that it arrested the + attention of the “rev-enuers.” This face was so individual that it was not + likely to be easily mistaken or forgotten. A wild, breezy look it had, and + a tricksy, incorporeal expression that might well befit some fantastic, + fabled thing of the woods. It was full of fine script of elusive meanings, + not registered in the lineaments of the prosaic man of the day, though + perchance of scant utility, not worth interpretation. His full gray eyes + were touched to glancing brilliancy by a moonbeam; his long, fibrously + floating brown hair was thrown backward; his receding chin was peculiarly + delicate; and though his well-knit frame bespoke a hardy vigor, his pale + cheek was soft and thin. All the rustic grotesquery of garb and posture + was cancelled by the deep shadow of a bough, and his delicate face showed + isolated in the moonlight. + </p> + <p> + Browdie silently pondered his vague suspicions for a moment “Whar did he + die at?” he then demanded at a venture. + </p> + <p> + “At his daddy's house, fur sure. Whar else?” responded the driver. “I hev + got what's lef' of him hyar in the coffin-box. We expected ter make it ter + Shiloh buryin'-ground 'fore dark; but the road is middlin' heavy, an' + 'bout five mile' back Ben cast a shoe. The funeral warn't over much 'fore + noon.” + </p> + <p> + “Whyn't they bury him in Eskaqua, whar he died!” persisted Browdie. + </p> + <p> + “Waal, they planned ter bury him alongside his mother an' gran'dad, what + used ter live in Tanglefoot Cove. But we air wastin' time hyar, an' we hev + got none ter spare. Gee, Ben! Git up, John!” + </p> + <p> + The wagon gave a lurch; the horses, holding back in bracing attitudes far + from the pole, went teetering down the steep slant, the locked wheel + dragging heavily; the four men sat silent, two in slouching postures at + the head of the coffin; the third, with the driver, was at its foot. It + seemed drearily suggestive, the last journey of this humble mortality, in + all the splendid environment of the mountains, under the vast expansions + of the aloof skies, in the mystic light of the unnoting moon. + </p> + <p> + “Is this bona-fide?” asked Browdie, with a questioning glance at the + informer, who had at length crept forth. + </p> + <p> + “I dunno,” sullenly responded the mountaineer. He had acquainted the two + officers, who were of a posse of revenue-raiders hovering in the vicinity, + with the mysterious circumstance that a freighted wagon now and then made + a midnight transit across these lonely ranges. He himself had heard only + occasionally in a wakeful hour the roll of heavy wheels, but he + interpreted this as the secret transportation of brush whisky from the + still to its market. He had thought to fix the transgression on an old + enemy of his own, long suspected of moonshining; but he was acquainted + with none of the youngsters on the wagon, at whom he had peered cautiously + from behind the rocks. His actuating motive in giving information to the + emissaries of the government had been the rancor of an old feud, and his + detection meant certain death. He had not expected the revenue-raiders to + be outnumbered by the supposed moonshiners, and he would not fight in the + open. He had no sentiment of fealty to the law, and the officers glanced + at each other in uncertainty. + </p> + <p> + “This evidently is not the wagon in question,” said Browdie, disappointed. + </p> + <p> + “I'll follow them a bit,” volunteered Bonan, the younger and the more + active of the two officers. “Seems to me they'll bear watching.” + </p> + <p> + Indeed, as the melancholy cortège fared down and down the steep road, + dwindling in the sheeny distance, the covert and half-suppressed laughter + of the sepulchral escort was of so keen a relish that it was well that the + scraping of the locked wheel aided the distance to mask the incongruous + sound. + </p> + <p> + “What ailed you-uns ter name <i>me</i> as the corpus, 'Gene Barker?” + demanded Walter Wyatt, when he had regained the capacity of coherent + speech. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I hed ter do suddint murder on somebody,” declared the driver, all + bluff and reassured and red-faced again, “an' I couldn't think quick of + nobody else. Besides, I helt a grudge agin' you fer not stuffin' mo' straw + 'twixt them jimmyjohns in the coffin-box.” + </p> + <p> + “That's a fac'. Ye air too triflin' ter be let ter live, Watt,” cried one + of their comrades. “I hearn them jugs clash tergether in the coffin-box + when 'Gene checked the team up suddint, I tell you. An' them men sure + 'peared ter me powerful suspectin'.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> hearn the clash of them jimmyjohns,” chimed in the driver. “I + really thunk my hour war come. Some informer must hev set them men ter + spyin' round fer moonshine.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, surely nobody wouldn't dare,” urged one of the group, uneasily; for + the identity of an informer was masked in secrecy, and his fate, when + discovered, was often gruesome. + </p> + <p> + “They couldn't hev noticed the clash of them jimmyjohns, nohow,” declared + the negligent Watt, nonchalantly. “But namin' <i>me</i> fur the dead one! + Supposin' they air revenuers fur true, an' hed somebody along, hid out in + the bresh, ez war acquainted with me by sight——” + </p> + <p> + “Then they'd hev been skeered out'n thar boots, that's all,” interrupted + the self-sufficient 'Gene. “They would hev 'lowed they hed viewed yer + brazen ghost, bold ez brass, standin' at the head of yer own coffin-box.” + </p> + <p> + “Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn't + acquainted with <i>me</i>,” persisted Watt, with his unique sense of + injury. + </p> + <p> + Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. “They would hev + jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an' at-tendin' him ter his long + home.” + </p> + <p> + “'Gene don't keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt,” one of the + others suggested tactlessly, “'count o' Minta Elladine Biggs.” + </p> + <p> + Eugene Barker's off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity + and his evident rancor as he declared: “<i>I</i> ain't carin' fur sech ez + Watt Wyatt. An' they <i>do</i> say in the cove that Minta Elladine Biggs + hev gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin' + kyerds, a-bet-tin' his money, drinkin' apple-jack, an' sech.” + </p> + <p> + The newly constituted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if to + retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes + widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he + pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of-the coffin was the + simulacrum of the figure of aman. + </p> + <p> + One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned a + significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a + fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of a + more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence + could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted + his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an + indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at + that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box. + </p> + <p> + The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed. The + number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at least one + of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the precipice and + the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had gradually dwindled to + a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and there washed out by recent + rains, and one of these indentations might have afforded an active man + access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had evidently kept abreast of them, + speeding along in great leaps through the lush growth of huckleberry + bushes, wild grasses, pawpaw thickets, silvered by the moon, all fringing + the great forests that had given way on the shelving verge of the steeps + where the road ran. Had he overheard their unguarded, significant words? + Who could divine, so silent were the windless mountains, so deep a-dream + the darksome woods, so spellbound the mute and mystic moonlight? + </p> + <p> + The group maintained a cautious reticence now, each revolving the + problematic disclosure of their secret, each canvassing the question + whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy + proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they + venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in midstream and + stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, as + the team manifested an inclination to drink in transit; and thence, as he + stood thus perched, he gazed to and fro, the stretch of dark and lustrous + ripples baffling all approach within ear-shot, the watering of the horses + justifying the pause and cloaking its significance to any distant + observer. + </p> + <p> + But the interval was indeed limited; the mental processes of such men are + devoid of complexity, and their decisions prompt. They advanced few + alternatives; their prime object was to be swiftly rid of the coffin and + its inculpating contents, and with the “revenuer” so hard on their heels + this might seem a troublous problem enough. + </p> + <p> + “Put it whar a coffin b'longs—in the churchyard,” said Wyatt; for at + a considerable distance beyond the rise of the opposite bank could be seen + a barren clearing in which stood a gaunt, bare, little white frame + building that served all the country-side for its infrequent religious + services. + </p> + <p> + “We couldn't dig a grave before that spy—ef he be a revenuer sure + enough—could overhaul us,” Eugene Barker objected. + </p> + <p> + “We could turn the yearth right smart, though,” persisted Wyatt, for + pickax and shovel had been brought in the wagon for the sake of an aspect + of verisimilitude and to mask their true intent. + </p> + <p> + Eugene Barker acceded to this view. “That's the dinctum—dig a few + jes fer a blind. We kin slip the coffin-box under the church-house 'fore + he gits in sight,—he'll be feared ter follow too close,—an' + leave it thar till the other boys kin wagon it ter the cross-roads' store + ter-morrer night.” + </p> + <p> + The horses, hitherto held to the sober gait of funeral travel, were now + put to a speedy trot, unmindful of whatever impression of flight the pace + might give to the revenue-raider in pursuit. The men were soon engrossed + in their deceptive enterprise in the churchyard, plying pickax and shovel + for dear life; now and again they paused to listen vainly for the sound of + stealthy approach. They knew that there was the most precarious and + primitive of foot-bridges across the deep stream, to traverse which would + cost an unaccustomed wayfarer both time and pains; thus the interval was + considerable before the resonance of rapid footfalls gave token that their + pursuer had found himself obliged to sprint smartly along the country road + to keep any hope of ever again' viewing the wagon which the intervening + water-course had withdrawn from his sight. That this hope had grown + tenuous was evident in his relinquishment of his former caution, for when + they again caught a glimpse of him he was forging along in the middle of + the road without any effort at concealment. But as the wagon appeared in + the perspective, stationary, hitched to the hedge of the graveyard, he + recurred to his previous methods. The four men still within the + in-closure, now busied in shovelling the earth back again into the + excavation they had so swiftly made, covertly watched him as he skulked + into the shadow of the wayside. The little “church-house,” with all its + windows whitely aglare in the moonlight, reflected the pervasive sheen, + and silent, spectral, remote, it seemed as if it might well harbor at + times its ghastly neighbors from the quiet cemetery without, dimly ranging + themselves once more in the shadowy ranks of its pews or grimly stalking + down the drear and deserted aisles. The fact that the rising ground toward + the rear of the building necessitated a series of steps at the entrance, + enabled the officer to mask behind this tall flight his crouching + approach, and thus he ensconced himself in the angle between the wall and + the steps, and looked forth in fancied security. + </p> + <p> + The shadows multiplied the tale of the dead that the head-boards kept, + each similitude askew in the moonlight on the turf below the slanting + monument To judge by the motions of the men engaged in the burial and the + mocking antics of their silhouettes on the ground, it must have been + obvious to the spectator that they were already filling in the earth. The + interment may have seemed to him suspiciously swift, but the possibility + was obvious that the grave might have been previously dug in anticipation + of their arrival. It was plain that he was altogether unprepared for the + event when they came slouching forth to the wagon, and the stalwart and + red-faced driver, with no manifestation of surprise, hailed him as he + still crouched in his lurking-place. “Hello, stranger! Warn't that you-uns + runnin' arter the wagon a piece back yonder jes a while ago?” + </p> + <p> + The officer rose to his feet, with an intent look both dismayed and + embarrassed. He did not venture on speech; he merely acceded with a nod. + </p> + <p> + “Ye want a lift, I reckon.” + </p> + <p> + The stranger was hampered by the incongruity between his rustic garb, + common to the coves, and his cultivated intonation; for, unlike his + comrade Browdie, he had no mimetic faculties whatever. Nevertheless, he + was now constrained to “face the music.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't want to interrupt you,” he said, seeking such excuse as due + consideration for the circumstances might afford; “but I'd like to ask + where I could get lodging for the night.” + </p> + <p> + “What's yer name?” demanded Barker, unceremoniously. + </p> + <p> + “Francis Bonan,” the raider replied, with more assurance. Then he added, + by way of explaining his necessity, “I'm a stranger hereabouts.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye air so,” assented the sarcastic 'Gene. “Ye ain't even acquainted with + yer own clothes. Ye be a town man.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I'm not the first man who has had to hide out,” Ronan parried, + seeking to justify his obvious disguise. + </p> + <p> + “Shot somebody?” asked 'Gene, with an apparent accession of interest. + </p> + <p> + “It's best for me not to tell.” + </p> + <p> + “So be.” 'Gene acquiesced easily. “Waal, ef ye kin put up with sech + accommodations ez our'n, I'll take ye home with me.” + </p> + <p> + Ronan stood aghast. But there was no door of retreat open. He was alone + and helpless. He could not conceal the fact that the turn affairs had + taken was equally unexpected and terrifying to him, and the moonshiners, + keenly watchful, were correspondingly elated to discern that he had surely + no reinforcements within reach to nerve him to resistance or to menace + their liberty. He had evidently followed them too far, too recklessly; + perhaps without the consent and against the counsel of his comrades, + perhaps even without their knowledge of his movements and intention. + </p> + <p> + Now and again as the wagon jogged on and on toward their distant haven, + the moonlight gradually dulling to dawn, Wyatt gave the stranger a + wondering, covert glance, vaguely, shrinkingly curious as to the + sentiments of a man vacillating between the suspicion of capture and the + recognition of a simple hospitality without significance or danger. The + man's face appealed to him, young, alert, intelligent, earnest, and the + anguish of doubt and anxiety it expressed went to his heart. In the + experience of his sylvan life as a hunter Wyatt's peculiar and subtle + temperament evolved certain fine-spun distinctions which were unique; a + trapped thing had a special appeal to his commiseration that a creature + ruthlessly slaughtered in the open was not privileged to claim. He did not + accurately and in words discriminate the differences, but he felt that the + captive had sounded all the gamut of hope and despair, shared the + gradations of an appreciated sorrow that makes all souls akin and that + even lifts the beast to the plane of brotherhood, the bond of emotional + woe. He had often with no other or better reason liberated the trophy of + his snare, calling after the amazed and franticly fleeing creature, + “Bye-bye, Buddy!” with peals of his whimsical, joyous laughter. + </p> + <p> + He was experiencing now a similar sequence of sentiments in noting the + wild-eyed eagerness with which the captured raider took obvious heed of + every minor point of worthiness that might mask the true character of his + entertainers. But, indeed, these deceptive hopes might have been easily + maintained by one not so desirous of reassurance when, in the darkest hour + before the dawn, they reached a large log-cabin sequestered in dense + woods, and he found himself an inmate of a simple, typical mountain + household. It held an exceedingly venerable grandfather, wielding his + infirmities as a rod of iron; a father and mother, hearty, hospitable, + subservient to the aged tyrant, but keeping in filial check a family of + sons and daughters-in-law, with an underfoot delegation of grandchildren, + who seemed to spend their time in a bewildering manouver of dashing out at + one door to dash in at another. A tumultuous rain had set in shortly after + dawn, with lightning and wind,—“the tail of a harricane,” as the + host called it,—and a terrible bird the actual storm must have been + to have a tail of such dimensions. There was no getting forth, no living + creature of free will “took water” in this elemental crisis. The numerous + dogs crowded the children away from the hearth, and the hens strolled + about the large living-room, clucking to scurrying broods. Even one of the + horses tramped up on the porch and looked in ever and anon, solicitous of + human company. + </p> + <p> + “I brung Ben up by hand, like a bottle-fed baby,” the hostess apologized, + “an' he ain't never fund out fur sure that he ain't folks.” + </p> + <p> + There seemed no possible intimation of moonshine in this entourage, and + the coffin filled with jugs, a-wagoning from some distillers' den in the + range to the cross-roads' store, might well have been accounted only the + vain phantasm of an overtired brain surcharged with the vexed problems of + the revenue service. The disguised revenue-raider was literally overcome + with drowsiness, the result of his exertions and his vigils, and observing + this, his host gave him one of the big feather beds under the low slant of + the eaves in the roof-room, where the other men, who had been out all + night, also slept the greater portion of the day. In fact, it was dark + when Wyatt wakened, and, leaving the rest still torpid with slumber and + fatigue, descended to the large main room of the cabin. + </p> + <p> + The callow members of the household had retired to rest, but the elders of + the band of moonshiners were up and still actively astir, and Wyatt + experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or + secrecy—the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of + apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. When + a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean air that + pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous odors, and + gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most unobservant inmate, + that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly immune to suspicion, + for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary mountain cabin. Thus the + infraction of the revenue law went on securely and continuously beneath + the placid, simple, domestic life, with its reverent care for the very + aged and its tender nurture of the very young. + </p> + <p> + It was significant, indeed, that the industry should not be pretermitted, + however, when a stranger was within the gates. The reason to Wyatt, + familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought, was only too + plain. They intended that the “revenuer” should never go forth to tell the + tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow his trail, either losing + it in the wilderness or from ignorance of his intention. He had put + himself hopelessly into the power of these desperate men, whom his escape + or liberation would menace with incarceration for a long term as Federal + prisoners in distant penitentiaries, if, indeed, they were not already + answerable to the law for some worse crime than illicit distilling. His + murder would be the extreme of brutal craft, so devised as to seem an + accident, against the possibility of future investigation. + </p> + <p> + The reflection turned Wyatt deathly cold, he who could not bear unmoved + the plea of a wild thing's eye. He sturdily sought to pull himself + together. It was none of his decree; it was none of his deed, he argued. + The older moonshiners, who managed all the details of the enterprise, + would direct the event with absolute authority and the immutability of + fate. But whatever should be done, he revolted from any knowledge of it, + as from any share in the act. He had risen to leave the place, all strange + of aspect now, metamorphosed,—various disorderly details of the + prohibited industry ever and anon surging up from the still-room below,—when + a hoarse voice took cognizance of his intention with a remonstrance. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Watt Wyatt, <i>ye</i> can't go out in the cove. Ye air dead! Ye will + let that t'other revenue-raider ye seen into the secret o' the bresh + whisky in our wagon ef ye air viewed about whenst 'Gene hev spread the + report that ye air dead. Wait till them raiders hev cleared out of the + kentry.” + </p> + <p> + The effort at detention, to interfere with his liberty, added redoubled + impetus to Wyatt 's desire to be gone. He suddenly devised a cogent + necessity. “I be feared my dad mought hear that fool tale. I ain't much + loss, but dad would feel it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I sent Jack thar ter tell him better whenst he drove ter mill ter-day + ter git the meal fer the mash. Jack made yer dad understand 'bout yer + sudden demise.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yeh,” interposed the glib Jack; “an' he said ez <i>he</i> couldn't + abide sech jokes.” + </p> + <p> + “Shucks!” cried the filial Wyatt. “Dad war full fresky himself in his + young days; I hev hearn his old frien's say so.” + </p> + <p> + “I tried ter slick things over,” said the diplomatic Jack. “I 'lowed young + folks war giddy by nature. I 'lowed 't war jes a flash o' fun. An' he say: + 'Flash o' fun be con-sarned! My son is more like a flash o' lightning; ez + suddint an' mischeevious an' totally ondesirable.'” + </p> + <p> + The reproach obviously struck home, for Wyatt maintained a disconsolate + silence for a time. At length, apparently goaded by his thoughts to + attempt a defense, he remonstrated: + </p> + <p> + “Nobody ever war dead less of his own free will. I never elected ter be a + harnt. 'Gene Barker hed no right ter nominate <i>me</i> fer the dear + departed, nohow.” + </p> + <p> + One of the uncouth younger fellows, his shoulders laden with a sack of + meal, paused on his way from the porch to the trap-door to look up from + beneath his burden with a sly grin as he said, “'Gene war wishin' it war + true, that's why.” + </p> + <p> + “'Count o' Minta Elladine Riggs,” gaily chimed in another. + </p> + <p> + “But 'Gene needn't gredge Watt foothold on this yearth fer sech; <i>she</i> + ain't keerin' whether Watt lives or dies,” another contributed to the + rough, rallying fun. + </p> + <p> + But Wyatt was of sensitive fibre. He had flushed angrily; his eyes were + alight; a bitter retort was trembling on his lips when one of the elder + Barkers, discriminating the elements of an uncontrollable fracas, seized + on the alternative. + </p> + <p> + “Could you-uns <i>sure</i> be back hyar by daybreak, Watt!” he asked, + fixing the young fellow with a stern eye. + </p> + <p> + “No 'spectable ghost roams around arter sun-up,” cried Wyatt, fairly + jovial at the prospect of liberation. + </p> + <p> + “Ye mus' be heedful not ter be viewed,” the senior admonished him. + </p> + <p> + “I be goin' ter slip about keerful like a reg'lar, stiddy-goin' harnt, an' + eavesdrop a bit. It's worth livin' a hard life ter view how a feller's + friends will take his demise.” + </p> + <p> + “I reckon ye kin make out ter meet the wagin kemin' back from the + cross-roads' store. It went out this evenin' with that coffin full of jugs + that ye lef' las' night under the church-house, whenst 'Gene seen you-uns + war suspicioned. They will hev time ter git ter the cross-roads with the + whisky on' back little arter midnight, special' ez we-uns hev got the + raider that spied out the job hyar fast by the leg.” + </p> + <p> + The mere mention of the young prisoner rendered Wyatt the more eager to be + gone, to be out of sight and sound. But he had no agency in the disaster, + he urged against some inward clamor of protest; the catastrophe was the + logical result of the fool-hardiness of the officer in following these + desperate men with no backing, with no power to apprehend or hold, relying + on his flimsy disguise, and risking delivering himself into their hands, + fettered as he was with the knowledge of his discovery of their secret. + </p> + <p> + “It's nothin' ter <i>me</i>, nohow,” Wyatt was continually repeating to + himself, though when he sprang through the door he could scarcely draw his + breath because of some mysterious, invisible clutch at his throat. + </p> + <p> + He sought to ascribe this symptom to the density of the pervasive fog + without, that impenetrably cloaked all the world; one might wonder how a + man could find his way through the opaque white vapor. It was, however, an + accustomed medium to the young mountaineer, and his feet, too, had + something of that unclassified muscular instinct, apart from reason, which + guides in an oft-trodden path. Once he came to a halt, from no uncertainty + of locality, but to gaze apprehensively through the blank, white mists + over a shuddering shoulder. “I wonder ef thar be any other harnts aloose + ter-night, a-boguing through the fog an' the moon,” he speculated. + Presently he went on again, shaking his head sagely. “I ain't wantin' ter + collogue with sech,” he averred cautiously. + </p> + <p> + Occasionally the moonlight fell in expansive splendor through a rift in + the white vapor; amidst the silver glintings a vague, illusory panorama of + promontory and island, bay and inlet, far ripplings of gleaming deeps, was + presented like some magic reminiscence, some ethereal replica of the past, + the simulacrum of the seas of these ancient coves, long since ebbed away + and vanished. + </p> + <p> + The sailing moon visibly rocked, as the pulsing tides of the cloud-ocean + rose and fell, and ever and anon this supernal craft was whelmed in its + surgings, and once more came majestically into view, freighted with + fancies and heading for the haven of the purple western shores. + </p> + <p> + In one of these clearances of the mists a light of an alien type caught + the eye of the wandering spectre—a light, red, mundane, of prosaic + suggestion. It filtered through the crevice of a small batten shutter. + </p> + <p> + The ghost paused, his head speculatively askew. “Who sits so late at the + forge!” he marvelled, for he was now near the base of the mountain, and he + recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its roof + aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As he + neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a deep, + gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words made the + matter plain. + </p> + <p> + “High, Low, Jack, <i>and</i> game! Fork! Fork!” Once more there arose a + high falsetto shriek of jubilant laughter. + </p> + <p> + Walter Wyatt crept noiselessly down the steep slant toward the shutter. He + had no sense of intrusion, for he was often one of the merry blades wont + to congregate at the forge at night and take a hand at cards, despite the + adverse sentiment of the cove and the vigilance of the constable of the + district, bent on enforcing the laws prohibiting gaming. As Wyatt stood at + the crevice of the shutter the whole interior was distinct before him—the + disabled wagon-wheels against the walls, the horse-shoes on a rod across + the window, the great hood of the forge, the silent bellows, with its + long, motionless handle. A kerosene lamp, perched on the elevated hearth + of the forge, illumined the group of wild young mountaineers clustered + about a barrel on the head of which the cards were dealt. There were no + chairs; one of the gamesters sat on a keg of nails; another on an inverted + splint basket; two on a rude bench that was wont to be placed outside the + door for the accommodation of customers waiting for a horse to be shod or + a plow to be laid. An onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his + ambition of admission to the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this + coign of vantage beheld all the outspread landscape of the “hands.” More + than once his indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his + survey of the cards menaced him with a broken head. More innocuous to the + interests of the play was a wight humbly ensconced on the shoeing-stool, + which barely brought his head to the level of the board; but as he was + densely ignorant of the game, he took no disadvantage from his lowly + posture. His head was red, and as it moved erratically about in the gloom, + Watt Wyatt thought for a moment that it was the smith's red setter. He + grinned as he resolved that some day he would tell the fellow this as a + pleasing gibe; but the thought was arrested by the sound of his own name. + </p> + <p> + “Waal, sir,” said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, “I s'pose ye + hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's takin' off.” + </p> + <p> + “An' none too soon, sartain.” A sour visage was glimpsed beneath the wide + brim of the speaker's hat. + </p> + <p> + “Waal,” drawled the semblance of the setter from deep in the + clare-obscure, “Watt war jes a fool from lack o' sense.” + </p> + <p> + “That kind o' fool can't be cured,” said another of the players. Then he + sharply adjuxed the dealer. “Look out what ye be doin'! Ye hev gimme <i>two</i> + kyerds.” + </p> + <p> + “'Gene Barker will git ter marry Minta Elladine Biggs now, I reckon,” + suggested the man on the anvil. + </p> + <p> + “An' I'll dance at the weddin' with right good will an' a nimble toe,” + declared the dealer, vivaciously. “I'll be glad ter see that couple + settled. That gal couldn't make up her mind ter let Walter Wyatt go, an' + yit no woman in her senses would hev been willin, ter marry him. He war ez + unresponsible ez—ez—fox-fire.” + </p> + <p> + “An' ez onstiddy ez a harricane,” commented another. + </p> + <p> + “An' no more account than a mole in the yearth,” said a third. + </p> + <p> + The ghost at the window listened in aghast dismay and became pale in sober + truth, for these boon companions he had accounted the best friends he had + in the world. They had no word of regret, no simple human pity; even that + facile meed of casual praise that he was “powerful pleasant company” was + withheld. And for these and such as these he had bartered the esteem of + the community at large and his filial duty and obedience; had spurned the + claims of good citizenship and placed himself in jeopardy of the law; had + forfeited the hand of the woman he loved. + </p> + <p> + “Minta Elladine Biggs ain't keerin' nohow fer sech ez Watt,” said the + semblance of the setter, with a knowing nod of his red head. “I war up + thar at the mill whenst the news kem ter-day, an' she war thar ter git + some seconds. I hev hearn women go off in high-strikes fer a lovyer's + death—even Mis' Simton, though hern was jes her husband, an 'a + mighty pore one at that. But Minta Elladine jes listened quiet an' + composed, an' never said one word.” + </p> + <p> + The batten shutter was trembling in the ghost's hand. In fact, so + convulsive was his grasp that it shook the hook from the staple, and the + shutter slowly opened as he stood at gaze. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps it was the motion that attracted the attention of the dealer, + perhaps the influx of a current of fresh air. He lifted his casual glance + and beheld, distinct in the light from the kerosene lamp and imposed on + the white background of the mist, that familiar and individual face, + pallid, fixed, strange, with an expression that he had never seen it wear + hitherto. One moment of suspended faculties, and he sprang up with a wild + cry that filled the little shanty with its shrill terror. The others gazed + astounded upon him, then followed the direction of his starting eyes, and + echoed his frantic fright. There was a wild scurry toward the door. The + overturning of the lamp was imminent, but it still burned calmly on the + elevated hearth, while the shoeing-stool capsized in the rush, and the red + head of its lowly occupant was lowlier still, rolling on the dirt floor. + Even with this disadvantage, however, he was not the hindmost, and reached + the exit unhurt. The only specific damage wrought by the panic was to the + big barnlike doors of the place. They had been stanchly barred against the + possible intrusion of the constable of the district, and the fastenings in + so critical an emergency could not be readily loosed. The united weight + and impetus of the onset burst the flimsy doors into fragments, and as the + party fled in devious directions in the misty moonlight, the calm radiance + entered at the wide-spread portal and illuminated the vacant place where + late had been so merry a crew. + </p> + <p> + Walter Wyatt had known the time when the incident would have held an + incomparable relish for him. But now he gazed all forlorn into the empty + building with a single thought in his mind. “Not one of 'em keered a mite! + Nare good word, nare sigh, not even, 'Fare ye well, old mate!'” + </p> + <p> + His breast heaved, his eyes flashed. + </p> + <p> + “An' I hev loant money ter Jim, whenst I hed need myself; an' holped + George in the mill, when his wrist war sprained, without a cent o' pay; + an' took the blame when 'Dolphus war faulted by his dad fur lamin' the + horse-critter; an' stood back an' let Pete git the meat whenst we-uns shot + fur beef, bein' he hev got a wife an' chil'ren ter feed. All <i>leetle</i> + favors, but nare <i>leetle</i> word.” + </p> + <p> + He had turned from the window and was tramping absently down the road, all + unmindful of the skulking methods of the spectral gentry. If he had + chanced to be observed, his little farce, that had yet an element of + tragedy in its presentation, must soon have reached its close. But the fog + hung about him like a cloak, and when the moon cast aside the vapors, it + was in a distant silver sheen illumining the far reaches of the valley. + Only when its light summoned forth a brilliant and glancing reflection on + a lower level, as if a thousand sabers were unsheathed at a word, he + recognized the proximity of the river and came to a sudden halt. + </p> + <p> + “Whar is this fool goin'?” he demanded angrily of space. “To the + graveyard, I declar', ez ef I war a harnt fur true, an' buried sure + enough. An' I wish I war. I wish I war.” + </p> + <p> + He realized, after a moment's consideration, that he had been + unconsciously actuated by the chance of meeting the wagon, returning by + this route from the cross-roads' store. He was tired, disheartened; his + spirit was spent; he would be glad of the lift. He reflected, however, + that he must needs wait some time, for this was the date of a + revival-meeting at the little church, and the distillers' wagon would lag, + that its belated night journey might not be subjected to the scrutiny and + comment of the church-goers. Indeed, even now Walter Wyatt saw in the + distance the glimmer of a lantern, intimating homeward-bound worshipers + not yet out of sight. + </p> + <p> + “The saints kep' it up late ter-night,” he commented. + </p> + <p> + He resolved to wait till the roll of wheels should tell of the return of + the moonshiners' empty wagon. + </p> + <p> + He crossed the river on the little footbridge and took his way languidly + along the road toward the deserted church. He was close to the hedge that + grew thick and rank about the little inclosure when he suddenly heard the + sound of lamentation from within. He drew back precipitately, with a sense + of sacrilege, but the branches of the unpruned growth had caught in his + sleeve, and he sought to disengage the cloth without such rustling stir as + might disturb or alarm the mourner, who had evidently lingered here, after + the dispersal of the congregation, for a moment's indulgence of grief and + despair. He had a glimpse through the shaking boughs and the flickering + mist of a woman's figure kneeling on the crude red clods of a new-made + grave. A vague, anxious wonder as to the deceased visited him, for in the + sparsely settled districts a strong community sense prevails. Suddenly in + a choking gust of sobs and burst of tears he recognized his own name in a + voice of which every inflection was familiar. For a moment his heart + seemed to stand still. His brain whirled with a realization of this + unforeseen result of the fantastic story of his death in Eskaqua Cove, + which the moonshiners, on the verge of detection and arrest, had + circulated in Tanglefoot as a measure of safety. They had fancied that + when the truth was developed it would be easy enough to declare the men + drunk or mistaken. The “revenuers” by that time would be far away, and the + pervasive security, always the sequence of a raid, successful or + otherwise, would once more promote the manufacture of the brush whisky. + The managers of the moon-shining interest had taken measures to guard + Wyatt's aged father from this fantasy of woe, but they had not dreamed + that the mountain coquette might care. He himself stood appalled that this + ghastly fable should delude his heart's beloved, amazed that it should + cost her one sigh, one sob. Her racking paroxysms of grief over this + gruesome figment of a grave he was humiliated to hear, he was woeful to + see. He felt that he was not worth one tear of the floods with which she + bewept his name, uttered in every cadence of tender regret that her + melancholy voice could compass. It must cease, she must know the truth at + whatever cost. He broke through the hedge and stood in the flicker of the + moonlight before her, pale, agitated, all unlike his wonted self. + </p> + <p> + She did not hear, amid the tumult of her weeping, the rustling of the + boughs, but some subtle sense took cognizance of his presence. She half + rose, and with one hand holding back her dense yellow hair, which had + fallen forward on her forehead, she looked up at him fearfully, + tremulously, with all the revolt of the corporeal creature for the essence + of the mysterious incorporeal. For a moment he could not speak. So much he + must needs explain. The next instant he was whelmed in the avalanche of + her words. + </p> + <p> + “Te hev kem!” she exclaimed in a sort of shrill ecstasy. “Te hev kem so + far ter hear the word that I would give my life ter hev said before. Te + knowed it in heaven! an' how like ye ter kem ter gin me the chanst ter say + it at last! How like the good heart of ye, worth all the hearts on yearth—an' + <i>buried hyar!</i>” + </p> + <p> + With her open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of + despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. “I love + ye! Oh, I <i>always</i> loved ye! I never keered fur nobody else! an' I + war tongue-tied, an' full of fool pride, an' faultin' ye fur yer ways; an' + I wouldn't gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin' ter hear. But now I kin + tell the pore ghost of ye—I kin tell the pore, pore ghost!” + </p> + <p> + She buried her swollen, tear-stained face in her hands, and shook her head + to and fro with the realization of the futility of late repentance. As she + once more lifted her eyes, she was obviously surprised to see him still + standing there, and the crisis seemed to restore to him the faculty of + speech. + </p> + <p> + “Minta Elladine,” he said huskily and prosaically, “I ain't dead!” + </p> + <p> + She sprang to her feet and stood gazing at him, intent and quivering. + </p> + <p> + “I be truly alive an' kicking an' ez worthless ez ever,” he went on. + </p> + <p> + She said not a word, but bent and pallid, and, quaking in every muscle, + stood peering beneath her hand, which still held back her hair. + </p> + <p> + “It's all a mistake,” he urged. “This ain't no grave. The top war dug a + leetle ter turn off a revenuer's suspicions o' the moonshiners. They put + that tale out.” + </p> + <p> + Still, evidently on the verge of collapse, she did not speak. + </p> + <p> + “Ye needn't be afeared ez I be goin' ter take fur true all I hearn ye say; + folks air gin ter vauntin' the dead,” he paused for a moment, remembering + the caustic comments over the deal of the cards, then added, “though I + reckon <i>I</i> hev hed some cur'ous 'speriences ez a harnt.” + </p> + <p> + She suddenly threw up both arms with a shrill scream, half nervous + exhaustion, half inexpressible delight. She swayed to and fro, almost + fainting, her balance failing. He caught her in his arms, and she leaned + sobbing against his breast. + </p> + <p> + “I stand ter every word of it,” she cried, her voice broken and lapsed + from control. “I love ye, an' I despise all the rest!” + </p> + <p> + “I be powerful wild,” he suggested contritely. + </p> + <p> + “I ain't keerin' ef ye be ez wild ez a deer.” + </p> + <p> + “But I'm goin' to quit gamesome company an' playin' kyerds an' sech. I + expec' ter mend my ways now,” he promised eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “Ye kin mend 'em or let 'em stay tore, jes ez ye please,” she declared + recklessly. “I ain't snatched my lovyer from the jaws o' death ter want + him otherwise; ye be plumb true-hearted, <i>I know</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “I mought ez well hev been buried in this grave fer the last ten year' fer + all the use I hev been,” he protested solemnly; “but I hev learnt a lesson + through bein' a harnt fer a while—I hev jes kem ter life. I'm goin' + ter <i>live</i> now. I'll make myself some use in the world, an' fust off + I be goin' ter hinder the murder of a man what they hev got trapped up + yander at the still.” + </p> + <p> + This initial devoir of his reformation, however, Wyatt found no easy + matter. The event had been craftily planned to seem an accident, a fall + from a cliff in pursuing the wagon, and only the most ardent and cogent + urgency on Wyatt's part prevailed at length. He argued that this + interpretation of the disaster would not satisfy the authorities. To take + the raider's life insured discovery, retribution. But as he had been + brought to the still in the night, it was obvious that if he were conveyed + under cover of darkness and by roundabout trails within striking distance + of the settlements, he could never again find his way to the locality in + the dense wilderness. In his detention he had necessarily learned nothing + fresh, for the only names he could have overheard had long been obnoxious + to suspicion of moonshining, and afforded no proof. Thus humanity, + masquerading as caution, finally triumphed, and the officer, blindfolded, + was conducted through devious and winding ways many miles distant, and + released within a day's travel of the county town. + </p> + <p> + Walter Wyatt was scarcely welcomed back to life by the denizens of the + cove generally with the enthusiasm attendant on the first moments of his + resuscitation, so to speak. He never forgot the solemn ecstasy of that + experience, and in later years he was wont to annul any menace of discord + with his wife by the warning, half jocose, half tender: “Ye hed better + mind; ye'll be sorry some day fur treatin' me so mean. Remember, I hev + viewed ye a-weepin' over my grave before now.” + </p> + <p> + A reformation, however complete and salutary, works no change of identity, + and although he developed into an orderly, industrious, law-abiding + citizen, his prankish temperament remained recognizable in the fantastic + fables which he delighted to recount at some genial fireside of what he + had seen and heard as a ghost. + </p> + <p> + “Pears like, Watt, ye hed more experiences whenst dead than living” said + an auditor, as these stories multiplied. + </p> + <p> + “I did, fur a fack,” Watt protested. “I war a powerful onchancy, onquiet + ghost. I even did my courtin' whilst in my reg'lar line o' business + a-hanatin' a graveyard.” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of His Unquiet Ghost, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS UNQUIET GHOST *** + +***** This file should be named 23556-h.htm or 23556-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23556/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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