“Shearjashub!” exclaimed the lady of the rock, “listen!”
But Shearjashub had given leg bail. Both he and his faithful squire, little Snap, had left the haunted glen as fast as their feet would carry them.
He told the story when he got home, with some little exaggeration. Nobody believed him except the widow, his honoured mother, who had faith to swallow a camel. All the rest laughed at him, and the wicked damsels of the village were always joking about his mountain sweetheart.
At last he got out of patience, and one day demanded of those who were bantering him what proof they would have of the truth of his story.
“Why,” said old Deacon Mayhew, “I guess I should be considerably particular satisfied if you would bring us hum that same fife you heard the gal play on so finely.”
“And I,” said another, “will believe the young squire if he'll play the same tune on it he heard yonder in the mountain.”
Shearjashub was so pestered and provoked at last, that he determined to put his courage to the proof, and see whether it would bear him out in another visit to the chasm in the mountain. He thought he might as well be dead as have no comfort of his life.
“I'll be darned if I don't go,” said he, and away he went, with no other company than his little dog. It was on the fourth day of July, 1776, that Shearjashub wrought himself up to a second visit.
“I'm just come of age this very day,” said he, “and I'll show the kritters I'm not made a man for nothing.”
He certainly felt, as he afterwards confessed, a little skittish on this occasion, and his dog seemed not much to relish the excursion. Shearjashub had his gun, but had not the heart to fire at any of the birds that flitted about, and seemed as if they were not afraid of coming nigh him. His mind ran upon other matters entirely. He was a long while getting to the chasm in the mountain. Sometimes he would stop to rest, as he said to himself, though he was not in the least tired; sometimes he found himself standing still, admiring nothing; and once or twice actually detected his feet moving on their way home, instead of towards the mountain.