"Ye needn't waste time studyin' 'bout that light, Sandy Marsh," said Mrs. Long, throwing the last stick on the fire, which was only a heap of glowing embers. "'T ain't worth the candle, since everybody in Cashiers knows that mountain is harnted."
"And has been ever since the little old man died up thar all by hisself," chimed in little Miss Bennett.
"I ain't a great believer in harnts," said the elder, "but if you viewed anything like fire up thar, hit certainly wa'n't built by human hands, for there ain't no possible way for a human to git there."
"There's the bridge Josiah Woodring built," Sandy ventured to say. "I crossed over to hit myself once afore the war-time."
"Hit fell into the gorge of its own weight an' rottenness, more 'n a year back," said the elder, "an' hit's certain that no man has set foot on the top of Whiteside since."
The fresh stick, which was only a branch, burned up and threw a flickering light on the grave faces about the shadowy room, in the midst of a general silence which was broken by the harsh voice of the mistress of the house.
"Hit's obleeged to be the harnts, an' comes 'long o' the bones o' the little old man not havin' had Christian burial up yonder."
"You see," said the elder, "his takin' off wa'n't regular, bein' altogether unbeknownst, otherwise I'd 'a' seen he had gospel service said over him that would 'a' left him layin' easy in his grave."
"Which hit stands to reason he can't do now," put in Mrs. Long, "under that heathen inscription they do say is writ on his headstone. If he really wanted to be forgot, he'd better left word with Jo-siah to bury him without so much as markin' the place; an' everybody knows that unmarked graves holds uneasy spirits."
"Accordin' to that doctrine, Mis' Long," said the major, "whole regiments of harnts 'u'd be marchin' an' counter-marchin' over some battle-fields I know."