III
UNCONSCIOUS MENTALITY
What their acquaintances called an “understanding,” existed between Arsula Jordan and Thaddeus Garrett and he had taken her with him up on the mountain to consult Dan Cutter about hauling the timber for a new house. Their horse, Beauregard, having taken the road leisurely, eleven o’clock found them winding along the downhill road but still two miles from their homes in the village.
On their right the Junaluska swirled between its wooded banks. The moon was on their right too, throwing shadows across their road, dense or skeleton, as evergreen or deciduous trees obstructed its radiance.
“I think I see things a-skulkin’ ’cross the road,” said Arsula, crowding Thad more closely; “do you reckon any wild-cats could have come down off the Bald?”
“It’s only the shadders a-shiftin’ theirselves when the wind bends the trees; I didn’t reckon you was that scary, Suly; why there’s nothin’ to be scairt of; I’m here Suly! And I ain’t scairt of anything that travels these yer mountings—leastwise not of anything in flesh and blood.”
“Well I ain’t scart of anything that isn’t flesh and blood.”
“You say you ain’t?”
“La, no; I don’t b’lieve in ha’nts.”
“You say you don’t?”
“No I don’t; I b’lieve that when a body’s once plumb dead and buried in the ground, he ain’t goin’ to show hisself on the top side of the earth again till judgment day.