“Well, he made no answer, nother; and thinkin’ he didn’t onderstand English, she tried him in Italian, and then in broken French, and then bungled out a little German; but no, still no answer. He took no more notice of her and her mister, and senior, and mountsheer, and mynheer, than if he never heerd them titles, but jist larfed on.
“She stopped a minit, and looked at him full in the face, to see what he meant by all this ongenteel behaviour, when all of a sudden, jist as she moved one step nearer to him, she saw he was a dead man, and had been so long there, part of the flesh had dropt off or dried off his face; and it was that that made him grin that way, like a fox-trap. It was the bone-house they was in. The place where poor, benighted, snow-squalled stragglers, that perish on the mountains, are located, for their friends to come and get them, if they want ‘em; and if there ain’t any body that knows ‘em or cares for ‘em, why they are left there for ever, to dry into nothin’ but parchment and atomy, as it’s no joke diggin’ a grave in that frozen region.
“As soon as she see’d this, she never said another blessed word, but jist walked off with the livin’ man’s pike, and began to poke her way down the mountain as careful as she cleverly could, dreadful tired, and awful frighted.
“Well, she hadn’t gone far, afore she heard her name echoed all round her—Happy! Happy! Happy! It seemed from the echoes agin, as if there was a hundred people a yelling it put all at once.
“Oh, very happy,’ said she, ‘very happy, indeed; guess you’d find it so if you was here. I know I should feel very happy if I was out of it, that’s all; for I believe, on my soul, this is harnted ground, and the people in it are possessed. Oh, if I was only to home, to dear Umbagog agin, no soul should ever ketch me in this outlandish place any more, I know.’
“Well, the sound increased and increased so, like young thunder she was e’en a’most skeared to death, and in a twitteration all over; and her knees began to shake so, she expected to go for it every minute; when a sudden turn of the path show’d her her husband and the poor squatter a sarchin’ for her.
“She was so overcome with fright and joy, she could hardly speak—and it warn’t a trifle that would toggle her tongue, that’s a fact. It was some time after she arrived at the house afore she could up and tell the story onderstandable; and when she did, she had to tell it twice over, first in short hand, and then in long metre, afore she could make out the whole bill o’ parcels. Indeed, she hante done tellin’ it yet, and wherever she is, she works round, and works round, till she gets Europe spoke of, and then she begins, ‘That reminds me of a most remarkable fact. Jist after I was married to Mr. Lot, we was to the Alps.’
“If ever you see her, and she begins that way, up hat and cut stick, double quick, or you’ll find the road over the Alps to Umbagog, a little the longest you’ve ever travelled, I know.
“Well, she had no sooner done than Cranbery jumps up on eend, and sais he to the guide, ‘Uncle,’ sais he, ‘jist come along with me, that’s a good feller, will you? We must return that good Samaritan’s’ cane to him; and as he must be considerable cold there, I’ll jist warm his hide a bit for him, to make his blood sarculate. If he thinks I’ll put that treatment to my wife, Miss Lot, into my pocket, and walk off with it, he’s mistaken in the child, that’s all, Sir. He may be stubbeder than I be, Uncle, that’s a fact; but if he was twice as stubbed, I’d walk into him like a thousand of bricks. I’ll give him a taste of my breed. Insultin’ a lady is a weed we don’t suffer to grow in our fields to Umbagog. Let him be who the devil he will, log-leg or leather-breeches—green-shirt or blanket-coat—land-trotter or river-roller, I’ll let him know there is a warrant out arter him, I know.”
“‘Why,’ sais the guide, ‘he couldn’t help himself, no how he could work it. He is a friar, or a monk, or a hermit, or a pilgrim, or somethin’ or another of that kind, for there is no eend to them, they are so many different sorts; but the breed he is of, have a vow never to look at a woman, or talk to a woman, or touch a woman, and if they do, there is a penance, as long as into the middle of next week.’