The postmaster was staggering and breathless when he reached his door, and once inside, he shoved the wooden bolt, and leaned against the table in the center of the room. Only a few glimmering coals lighted the ashes between the iron fire-dogs. Just enough moonlight struggled through the grimy south window to show the glazed boxes, holding a paper here and an uncalled-for letter there, while the unused places were stuffed with bunches of twine, and heaps of nails, and strings of onions, and quite the dustiest litter of odds and ends filled the compartments X, Y, and Z. As the old man raised his eyes and glared around the shadowy walls, there was something which caught a fleck of moonlight high up on the chimney, but that was only the perforated cross of the churn-dasher thrust between the logs. In the north window, over opposite to the letter-boxes, his eyes fell on a wide-mouthed bottle, from whose top two dead stalks of geraniums drooped over to the shoulders of the bottle, and then spread out to right and left against the glass. With a shiver of fear, he supported himself over to his arm-chair, and sank down with his back to the object, which reminded him of the "harnt" flinging its arms against the snow on the mountain.
The postmaster had not yet found his voice. Perhaps he feared to break the death-like stillness of the room, heavy with the sooty odor of the fireplace. For some moments he heard nothing but his own heavy breathing, and then a dull clatter, like some hard object striking on wood, came from behind the house. Instead of being startled at hearing this noise, the postmaster got upon his feet, and shuffled across the floor and out through a creaking door into a lean-to, where the moonlight poured through the loose log wall and lay in spots and stripes on the old brindle plow-steer, which was still grinding his crumpled horns against the wooden rack above his manger.
"I've seen hit, Buck! I've seen hit. The harnt!—the harnt!"
The postmaster's voice had come at last, and as he spoke he leaned on the shoulders of the ox, whose cold wet nose sought his groping hand.
"I hain't got long to stay. I've seen what 't ain't good to see, an' live. I hope ye'll git a good master when I'm gone, Buck. Tell 'Liz'beth that I died a-blessin' of her name, with all the boldness took clean out of me. Cut off in my sins," he moaned, throwing his arms about the neck of the ox, "for seein' a harnt unbeknownst, an' hit strikin' out desperit at Jo-siah, or whoever did the murder, an' not keerin' for the avalanche no more 'n you keer for a hickory gad. Whoa, Buck, whoa," and as he spoke he patted the animal on the neck. "I'm a-goin' to stay 'long o' you, Buck, this whole endurin' night. I'm afeard to go back into the office."
The postmaster trembled where he stood, and a ray of moonlight, coming through a knot-hole in the slab roof, fell full on his ashen face and glaring eyes. He spoke no more for a time, except an occasional caressing word to soothe the uneasy ox, which sidled about and grated his horns against the wooden stanchions. Then, when he grew weary in that position, he climbed over into the long manger and crouched down on the corn-shucks, where he could see the mild eyes of the ox, and the spots and stripes of moonlight on his tough hide. Gradually he grew calmer, and tried to put the gruesome sight he had seen out of his mind.
"I never knowed before ye was sech good company, Buck. You've got eyes like a woman, an' a heap more patience. I'll never strike ye another blow, an' if I live to see to-morrow I'll write ye a letter, an' put hit in B box, expressin' my brotherly feelin's in language more fitter than I'm able to do now."
The postmaster continued to mutter caressingly to his dumb companion, until the bars and spots of moonlight began to fade, leaving the ox in obscurity, which was the time when Philip reached the upper bank and sank down on the snow, after hearing the telescope strike on the rocks in the Cove; and both men must have fallen asleep at about the same time.
It was mid-forenoon when the postmaster awoke, and a man was standing over him, shaking his shoulder. The man was coming home from, the frolic at the cabin, and finding the front door bolted, had come around to the shed. He had the cake and the gun, which he had found in the field.
"What in the name o' sense are ye doin' here at this time o' day, 'Manuel? Come outen that manger."