“I am,” he replied. “I am, though I don’t just know why I should be, as I have no liking for such things and am afraid of them.”
“We are not always master of the things that come to us,” said the lad. “Perhaps it is not best that we should be.”
“It may be so,” said the hostler. “But I for one cannot understand it. If I were big of body and had an enterprising mind, I might be able to come to hand grips with some of the people I take note of. But, as it stands, I am neither, and so must content myself with listening and looking and shaking my head.”
“How does one come to be acquainted with the road after dark?” asked Ben, curiously. “I have traveled it many times at all hours, and the night hours have seemed much the same as the others to me, except that the going was more difficult.”
“The secret of the night road does not come to one who travels it merely,” said the hostler, wisely. “No, no. To get at the heart of it, one must study it, one must lie by its side, staring at it; one must listen to the slightest murmur that stirs it, the smallest thing, the faintest whisper, the tiniest throb of life. He must have eyes that can pierce the darkness and ears that can catch sounds a great way off. And not only must he do all this, but he must be able to understand what he sees and hears and feels.”
“YOU SAW SOMETHING THEN?”
The speaker arose from the grain sacks, went to the barn window and looked cautiously out. Then he came close to Ben, and continued in a low voice:
“If I had not been able to do all this, how could I have understood what I saw to-night as I came from the mill, a mile beyond the turnpike road?”
“You saw something, then?” said Ben. The lad thought the man, from his queer words, must be slightly demented; but, for all, there was an earnestness about him which compelled attention.