The wild, white moon, nearly at the full, was plunging swiftly through heavy masses of gray cloud, that at times quite obscured her light, and the solid shapes of hill and wood, and the sweeping, changing shadows were so mingled that it was hard to distinguish what was real earth and what was but the effect of cloud and wind-blown moonshine. All the twilight world seemed sound and motion.
Phœbe, as well as her rider, perhaps, felt some of the influences of the time; for she snorted and turned her head homeward, as if minded to return to her warm stable; but she gave way to Fayette’s voice and hand, and, striking into a steady pace, picked her way down the steep and deeply-furrowed road as soberly as an old cart-horse.
The Ford farm-house lay half way up the side of a high hill, and the farm extended into the valley below in pasture and meadow land. Here, for a space, was a hard gravel road; and Fayette, yielding to the spur of the moment, let Phœbe canter, which she was only too willing to do, and was relieved to find how easily she kept her seat, and how gentle was the motion.
In a few minutes the bounds of the farm were passed, and Fayette’s heart sank low as they drew near the roaring, sounding woods through which the road lay. The trees stood up like a black wall, with one blacker archway, into which the path ran, and was lost in the darkness beyond.
People who have never been allowed to hear the word “ghost,” who know nothing of popular superstitions, who are strangers to ballad lore and to Walter Scott, will, nevertheless, be often awed and sometimes panic-struck by night, and darkness, and wind, and that power of the unseen which laughs Mr. Gradgrind himself to scorn.
Fayette, however, had not been properly brought up, according to Mr. Gradgrind’s system. She had read all sorts of wild tales, and listened to them from the lips of a Scotch nurse. She knew many a ballad, and many a bit of folk lore, and old paganism,—pleasant enough puppets for imagination to play with under the sunshine, but which now rose up in a grim life-likeness quite too real.
The owls began to call from the shadows, and once and again came a long, wild scream, which, in the darkness and wind, had an awful sound.
Fayette knew perfectly well that it was only a coon calling, but for all that it frightened her. There came over her that horrible feeling which most people have experienced once in their lives at least—the sense that some unseen pursuer is coming up behind. In a sudden spasm of terror, she very nearly gave way to the impulse that urged her to rush blindly on anywhere to escape the dread follower. Nerves and imagination were running wild; but Fayette, from her earliest years, had been trained to self-control and duty. She checked the panic that urged her to cry and scream for help. She used her reason, and forced herself to look back and assure her senses that, so far as she could see the dim track, she and Phœbe were the only living creatures there.
“I am doing what is right,” she said to herself. “God is here as much as in my room at home. It is folly to fear things that are not real, and as for living beings, not even a wolf could catch me on Phœbe.”
Resolutely rousing her will, she grew more used to her situation, and, more able to control her terrors, she sternly refused to give rein to her frightened fancy. She drew a long breath, however, when once the wood was passed and the road began to climb the opposing hill, behind which, and across the creek, lay Springville. She thought of William of Deloraine and his ride to Melrose, and smiled at the remembrance of that matter-of-fact hero.