“Strange enough,” he said, suddenly, “the sker-riest tale I hev ever hearn 'bout that thar old bredge is one that my niece set a-goin'. She seen the harnt herself, an' it shakes me wuss 'n the idee o' all the rest.”
His companion's gloomy gaze was lifted for a moment with an expression of inquiry from the slowly widening circles of the water about the horse's head as he drank. But Roxby's eyes, with a certain gleam of excitement, a superstitious dilation, still dwelt upon the bridge at the end of the upward vista. He went on merely from the impetus of the subject. “Yes, sir—she seen it a-pacin' of its sorrowful way acrost that bredge, same ez the t'others of the percession o' harnts. 'Twar my niece, Mill'cent—brother's darter—by name, Mill'cent Roxby. Waal, Mill'cent an' a lot o' young fools o' her age—little over fryin' size—they 'tended camp-meetin' down hyar on Tomahawk Creek—'tain't so long ago—along with the old folks. An' 'bout twenty went huddled up tergether in a road-wagin. An', lo! the wagin it bruk down on the way home, an' what with proppin' it up on a crotch, they made out ter reach the cross-roads over yander at the Notch, an' thar the sober old folks called a halt, an' hed the wagin mended at the blacksmith-shop. Waal, it tuk some two hours, fur Pete Rodd ain't a-goin' ter hurry hisself—in my opinion the angel Gabriel will hev ter blow his bugle oftener'n wunst at the last day 'fore Pete Rodd makes up his mind ter rise from the dead an' answer the roll-call—an' this hyar young lot sorter found it tiresome waitin' on thar elders' solemn company. The old folks, whilst waitin', set outside on the porches of the houses at the settlemint, an' repeated some o' the sermons they hed hearn at camp, an' more'n one raised a hyme chune. An' the young fry—they hed hed a steady diet o' sermons an' hyme chunes fur fower days—they tuk ter stragglin' off down the road, two an' two, like the same sorter id jits the world over, leavin' word with the old folks that the wagin would overtake 'em an' pick 'em up on the road when it passed. Waal, they walked several mile, an' time they got ter the crest o' the hill over yander the moon hed riz, an' they could look down an' see the mist in the valley. The moon war bright in the buryin'-groun' when they passed it, an' the head-boards stood up white an' stiff, an' a light frost hed fell on the mounds, an' they showed plain, an' shone sorter lonesome an' cold. The young folks begun ter look behind em' fur the wagin. Some said—I b'lieve 'twar Em'ry Keen an—they could read the names on the boards plain, 'twar so light, the moon bein' nigh the full: but Em'ry never read nuthin' at night by the moon in his life; he ain't enny too capable o' wrastlin' with the alphabet with a strong daytime on his book ter light him ter knowledge. An' the shadows war black an' still, an' all the yearth looked ez ef nuthin' lived nor ever would agin, an' they hearn a wolf howl. Waal, that disaccommodated the gals mightily, an' they hed a heap more interes' in that old wagin, all smellin' rank with wagin-grease an' tar, than they did in thar lovyers; an' they hed ruther hev hearn that old botch of a wheel that Pete Rodd hed set onto it com in' a-creakin' an' a-com-plainin' along the road than the sweetest words them boys war able ter make up or remember. So they stood thar in the road—a-stare-gazin' them head-boards, like they expected every grave ter open an' the reveilly ter sound—a-waitin' ter be overtook by the wagin, a-listenin', but hearin' nuthin' in the silence o' the frost—not a dead leaf a-twirlin', nor a frozen blade o' grass astir. An' then two or three o' the gals 'lowed they hed ruther walk back ter meet the wagin, an' whenst the boys 'lowed ter go on—nuthin' war likely ter ketch 'em—one of 'em bust out a-cryin'. Waal, thar war the eend o' that much! So the gay party set out on the back track, a-keepin' step ter sobs an' sniffles, an' that's how kem they seen no harnt. But Mill'-cent an' three or four o' the t'others 'lowed they'd go on. They warn't two mile from home, an' full five from the cross-roads. So Em'ry Keenan—he hev been waitin' on her sence the year one—so he put his skeer in his pocket an' kem along with her, a-shakin' in his shoes, I'll be bound! So down the hill in the frosty moonlight them few kem—purty nigh beat out, I reckon, Mill'cent war, what with the sermonizin' an' the hyme-singin' an' hevin' ter look continual at the sheep's-eyes o' Em'ry Keenan—he wears my patience ter the bone! So she concluded ter take the short-cut. An' Em'ry he agreed. So they tuk the lead, the rest a following an' kem down thar through all that black growth”—he lifted his arm and pointed at the great slope, dense with fir and pine and the heavy underbrush—“keepin' the bridle-path—easy enough even at night, fur the bresh is so thick they couldn't lose thar way. But the moonlight war mightily slivered up, fallin' through the needles of the pines an' the skeins of dead vines, an' looked bleached and onnatural, an' holped the dark mighty leetle. An' they seen the water a-shinin' an' a-plungin' down the gorge, an' the glistenin' of the frost on the floor o' the bredge. Thar war a few icicles on the hand-rail, an' the branches o' the firs hung ez still ez death; only that cold, racin', shoutin', jouncin' water moved. Jes ez they got toler'ble nigh the foot-bredge a sudden cloud kem over the face o' the sky. Thar warn't no wind on the yearth, but up above the air war a-stirrin'. An' Em'ry he 'lowed Mill'cent shouldn't cross the foot-bredge whilst the light warn't clar—I wonder the critter hed that much sense! An' she jes' drapped down on that rock thar ter rest”—he pointed up the slope to a great fragment that had broken off from the ledges and lay near the bank: the bulk of the mass was overgrown with moss and lichen, but the jagged edges of the recent fracture gleamed white and crystalline among the brown and olive-green shadows about it. A tree was close beside it. “Agin that thar pine trunk Em'ry he stood an' leaned. The rest war behind, a-comin' down the hill. An' all of a suddenty a light fell on the furder eend o' the foot-bredge—a waverin' light, mighty white an' misty in the darksomeness. Mill'cent 'lowed ez fust she thunk it war the moon. An' lookin' up, she seen the cloud; it held the moon close kivered. An' lookin' down, she seen the light war movin'—movin' from the furder eend o' the bredge, straight acrost it. Sometimes a hand war held afore it, ez ef ter shield it from the draught, an' then Mill'cent 'seen twar a candle, an' the white in the mistiness war a 'oman wearin' white an' carryn' it.
Lookin' ter right an' then ter lef the 'oman kem, with now her right hand shieldin' the candle she held, an' now layin' it on the hand-rail. The candle shone on the water, fur it didn't flare, an' when the 'oman held her hand before it the light made a bright spot on the foot-bredge an' in the dark air about her, an' on the fir branches over her head. An' a thin mist seemed to hang about her white frock, but not over her face, fur when she reached the middle o' the foot-bredge she laid her hand agin on the rail, an' in the clear light o' the candle Mill'cent seen the harnt's face. An' thar she beheld her own face; her own face she looked upon ez she waited thar under the tree watchin' the foot-bredge; her own face pale an' troubled; her own self dressed in white, crossin' the foot-bredge, an' lightin' her steps with a corpse's candle.” He drew up the reins abruptly. He seemed in sudden haste to go. His companion looked with deepening interest at the bridge, although he followed his guide's surging pathway to the opposite bank. As the two dripping horses struggled up the steep incline he asked, “Did the man with her see the manifestation also?”
“He 'lows he did,” responded Roxby, equivocally. “But when Mill'cent fust got so she could tell it, 'peared ter me ez Em'ry Keen an fund it ez much news ez the rest o' we-uns. Mill'cent jes' drapped stone-dead, accordin' ter all accounts, an' he an' the t'other young folks flung water in her face till she kem out'n her faint; an' jes' then they hearn the wagin a-rattlin' along the road, an' they stopped it an' fetched her home in it. She never told the tale till she war home, an' it skeered me an' my mother powerful, fur Mill'cent is all the kin we hev got. Mill'cent is gran'daddy an' gran'mam-my, sons an' daughters, uncles an' aunts, cousins, nieces, an' nephews, all in one. The only thing I ain't pervided with is a nephew-in-law, an' I don't need him. Leastwise I ain't lookin' fur Em'ry Keenan jes' at present.”
The pace was brisker when the two horses, bending their strength sturdily to the task, had pressed up the massive slope from the deep cleft of the gorge. As the road curved about the outer verge of the mountain, the valley far beneath came into view, with intersecting valleys and transverse ranges, dense with the growths of primeval wildernesses, and rugged with the tilted strata of great upheavals, and with chasms cut in the solid rock by centuries of erosion, traces of some remote cataclysmal period, registering thus its throes and turmoils. The blue sky, seen beyond a gaunt profile of one of the farther summits that defined its craggy serrated edge against the ultimate distances of the western heavens, seemed of a singularly suave tint, incongruous with the savagery of the scene, which clouds and portents of storm might better have befitted. The little graveyard, which John Dundas discerned with recognizing eyes, albeit they had never before rested upon it, was revealed suddenly, lying high on the opposite side of the gorge. No frost glimmered now on the lowly mounds; the flickering autumnal sunshine loitered unafraid among them, according to its languid wont for many a year. Shadows of the gray un-painted head-boards lay on the withered grass, brown and crisp, with never a cicada left to break the deathlike silence. A tuft of red leaves, vagrant in the wind, had been caught on one of the primitive monuments, and swayed there with a decorative effect. The enclosure seemed, to unaccustomed eyes, of small compass, and few the denizens who had found shelter here and a resting-place, but it numbered all the dead of the country-side for many a mile and many a year, and somehow the loneliness was assuaged to a degree by the reflection that they had known each other in life, unlike the great herds of cities, and that it was a common fate which the neighbors, huddled together, encountered in company.
It had no discordant effect in the pervasive sense of gloom, of mighty antagonistic forces with which the scene was replete; it fostered a realization of the pitiable minuteness and helplessness of human nature in the midst of the vastness of inanimate nature and the evidences of infinite lengths of forgotten time, of the long reaches of unimagined history, eventful, fateful, which the landscape at once suggested and revealed and concealed.
Like the sudden flippant clatter of castanets in the pause of some solemn funeral music was the impression given by the first glimpse along the winding woodland way of a great flimsy white building, with its many pillars, its piazzas, its “observatory,” its band-stand, its garish intimations of the giddy, gay world of a summer hotel. But, alack! it, too, had its surfeit of woe.
“The guerrillas an' bushwhackers tuk it out on the old hotel, sure!” observed Sim Roxby, by way of introduction. “Thar warn't much fightin' hyar-abouts, an' few sure-enough soldiers ever kem along. But wunst in a while a band o' guerrillas went through like a suddint wind-storm, an' I tell ye they made things whurl while they war about it. They made a sorter barracks o' the old place. Looks some like lightning hed struck it.”