Now the hand was close to Jason and he was a-crowding away from it. His eyes was sticking out of his head about a foot and his mouth was open wide enough to stick that hand right into it. All he could see was that hand and the ghost light that come with it. The light was an electric flash of Mark’s. The hand came closer and closer and touched Jason right on the cheek. Well, sir, you never heard such a screech as he let out.
“Go away!” says he. “Don’t touch me! What be you ha’ntin’ me fer? I hain’t never done nothin’ to you. Ooo-oo!”
“Kneel, Jason Barnes!” says Mark, and down plopped Jason right in that chilly water. “Kneel and confess.”
And all that time that clammy hand was a-fumbling over Jason’s face. If I’d been him I calc’late I’d have keeled over and give up the ghost right there, but maybe, being one of them spirit fellers, Jason was sort of familiar with ghosts and wasn’t as scairt as I would have been. But he was scairt enough. Come to think it over, I don’t see how a body could get much more scairt than he was.
“Jason Barnes,” says Mark again, “what—are—you—doing—there?”
“Oh, Spirit, whoever you be,” says Jason, his teeth clattering like clappers, “I hain’t doin’ nothin’. I was walkin’ in my sleep. I hain’t a-doin’ nothin’.”
“Jason Barnes—confess,” says the voice.
“I—Oh, Mr. Ghost—I come to bust the water-wheel.”
“Why?”
“’Tain’t my fault. I didn’t know any ghosts was int’rested in this mill.... I was hired.”