The young man took leave presently, in great depression of spirits. . . . Clarsie ascended the ladder to a nook in the roof which she called her room.
For the first time in her life her slumber was fitful and restless, long intervals of wakefulness alternating with snatches of fantastic dreams. . . . And then her mind reverted to Tom Pratt, to old Simon Burney, and to her mother’s emphatic and oracular declaration that widowers are in league with Satan, and that the girls upon whom they cast the eye of supernatural fascination have no choice in the matter. “I wish I knowed ef that thar sayin’ war true,” she murmured, her face still turned to the western spurs, and the moon sinking slowly toward them.
With a sudden resolution she rose to her feet. She knew a way of telling fortunes which was, according to tradition, infallible, and she determined to try it, and ease her mind as to her future. Now was the propitious moment. “I hev always hearn that it won’t come true ’thout ye try it jes’ before daybreak, an’ kneelin’ down at the forks of the road.” She hesitated a moment and listened intently. “They’d never git done a-laffin’ at me, ef they fund it out,” she thought. . . . [She went out into the road.] She fixed her eyes upon the mystic sphere dropping down the sky, knelt among the azaleas at the forks of the road, and repeated the time-honored invocation: “Ef I’m a-goin’ ter marry a young man, whistle, Bird, whistle. Ef I’m a-goin’ ter marry an old man, low, Cow, low. Ef I ain’t a-goin’ ter marry nobody, knock, Death, knock.”
There was a prolonged silence in the matutinal freshness and perfume of the woods. She raised her head, and listened attentively. No chirp of half-awakened bird, no tapping of wood-pecker or the mysterious death-watch; but from far along the dewy aisles of the forest, the ungrateful Spot that Clarsie had fed more faithfully than herself, lifted up her voice, and set the echoes vibrating. Clarsie, however, had hardly time for a pang of disappointment.
While she still knelt among the azaleas, her large deer-like eyes were suddenly dilated with terror. From around the curve of the road came the quick beat of hastening footsteps, the sobbing sound of panting breath, and between her and the sinking moon there passed an attenuated one-armed figure, with a pallid sharpened face, outlined for a moment on its brilliant disk, and dreadful starting eyes, and quivering open mouth. It disappeared in an instant among the shadows of the laurel, and Clarsie, with a horrible fear clutching at her heart, sprang to her feet. . . . the ghost stood before her. She could not nerve herself to run past him, and he was directly in her way homeward.
. . . . . . . . .
“Ye do ez ye air bid, or it’ll be the worse for ye,” said the “harnt” in a quivering shrill tone. “Thar’s hunger in the nex’ worl’ ez well ez in this, an’ ye bring me some vittles hyar this time ter-morrer, an’ don’t ye tell nobody ye hev seen me, nuther, or it’ll be the worse for ye.” . . .
The next morning, before the moon sank, Clarsie, with a tin pail in her hand, went to meet the ghost at the appointed place. . . . . . Morning was close at hand. . . . . . the leaves fell into abrupt commotion, and he was standing in the road, beside her. He did not speak, but watched her with an eager, questioning intentness, as she placed the contents of the pail upon the moss at the roadside. “I’m a-comin’ agin ter-morrer,” she said, gently. . . . Then she slowly walked along her misty way in the dim light of the coming dawn. There was a footstep in the road behind her; she thought it was the ghost once more. She turned, and met Simon Burney, face to face. His rod was on his shoulder, and a string of fish was in his hand.
“Ye air a-doin’ wrongful, Clarsie,” he said sternly. “It air agin the law fur folks ter feed an’ shelter them ez is a-runnin’ from jestice. An’ ye’ll git yerself inter trouble. Other folks will find ye out, besides me, an’ then the sheriff ’ll be up hyar arter ye.”
The tears rose to Clarsie’s eyes. This prospect was infinitely more terrifying than the awful doom which follows the horror of a ghost’s speech. “I can’t help it,” she said, however, doggedly swinging the pail back and forth. “I can’t gin my consent ter starvin’ of folks, even if they air a-hidin’ an’ a-runnin’ from jestice.” . . . .