Philo wonders if it is not almost daylight, and looks out at the east window for the first streak of dawn; reflects that he must start early, for it is nine miles to the town, and his old horse is not over-active. He will have to dress up, too, for the funeral. How strange! To pass away the time, he begins to get out his clothes and lay them ready. From the depths of a great red chest he brings up a pair of good, new pantaloons, that he has not worn for ten years, and then a coat to match, and a fine shirt with a ruffled bosom, that Aunt Betsy made for him while she was still young enough to do such things. And, lastly, he bethinks himself of a pair of black linen gloves that he bought on the occasion of the good woman's funeral, and from the darkest corner of the chest he fishes them up. A little dingy and rotten they are, to be sure, but still in wonderful preservation, though they give way in two or three spots when he puts them carefully on.
In these little occupations he wears away the hours till the darkness begins to grow gray, and as soon as he can see sufficiently he goes to the pasture and leads his astonished old horse to the door. Then comes the terrible process of shaving;—and what spectacle is more forlorn than that of an old bachelor trying to shave a long, stiff beard by a weak light and with cold water? Even this is at length achieved; and then, after much brushing and other unaccustomed elaborations of toilet, he places the will carefully in his pocket, and, drawing on the rusty gloves, takes a final survey of himself before starting. The mouldy little mirror reflects a thin, yellow face dried into long, fine wrinkles, straggling gray locks, and watery, pale-blue eyes. The old-fashioned clothes make the thin, stooping figure more awkward and spindling, and a high, tight cravat completes the scarecrow effect of the whole. Still Philo has done his best, and is satisfied, as he mounts his ancient steed, that he presents the very likeness of respectable sorrow.
And jogging decorously onward, as becomes his dismal errand, he ponders how different this morning is from all the other mornings of his life. In the silver-gray dawn there come back all the strange sentiments that had arisen out of the surprise and excitement of the previous midnight. A thick mist creeps up from a little stream that runs by the road-side, and its damp, clinging chill seems to strike through and saturate his very vitals. It occurs to him that the road is very lonely, and the few scattered farm-houses very dreary and inhospitable-looking, for it is a cloudy morning, and people are not yet stirring.
All the influences and associations of the hour are dreary and funereal. He tries to fix his mind upon the inheritance into which he is about to step, but no bright, alluring visions rise at his call, and his thoughts are either perpetually recurring to the early memories that so affected him the night before, or else to the suggestion of his own form lying stiff and cold for burial in the place of his cousin's. All the well-known landmarks of the familiar way start into new and strange aspects; and he recoils in affright from an old guideboard that has stood in exactly the same place for forty years, but now appears like some spectral gallows that spreads its arms in ghostly invitation. He twists and pinches himself as he rides along, to be assured that he is in the world of realities; but the night's experiences have unstrung his aged nerves, and mind and body quiver helplessly alike.
And now, from the brow of a little eminence, he perceives a gig slowly advancing from below, and, as it nears him, he becomes conscious of a great familiarity in its appearance. It is certainly very like the one that John bought so long ago, before Molly was married, and which he has used ever since. Curiously, too, it is drawn by a white horse, and John has had a white horse for ages past. This is indeed a coincidence. The thing comes noiselessly nearer. Oh, horror of horrors! It is John's own self,—his form,—his features,—his old brown hat,—John indeed, but deadly pale, and with wide, wild eyes fixed in a terrible stony gaze. No natural look, no nod of recognition, but only that hideous, glassy stare as he comes silently along, riding up out of the white fog.
Philo can neither move nor cry out. He would turn and escape, but his stiffened hand refuses to draw the rein, and his horse has become, like himself, rigid and motionless.
Prayers, oaths, and invocations rush, in a confused huddle, through his bewildered brain, as he sits and gazes, unable to remove his eyes from that horrid sight, and while he is vainly seeking to frame his lips to some sort of utterance, the wraith itself breaks the silence.
"Philo." The tone is broken and distant.
Trembling and choked, he tries to answer. The blood rushes to his face and almost blinds him, and he stammers out,—
"John Avery,—aren't you dead?"