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His Unquiet Ghost
by
“Then they’d hev been skeered out’n thar boots, that’s all,” interrupted the self-sufficient ‘Gene. “They would hev ‘lowed they hed viewed yer brazen ghost, bold ez brass, standin’ at the head of yer own coffin-box.”
“Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn’t acquainted with me,” persisted Watt, with his unique sense of injury.
Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. “They would hev jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an’ at-tendin’ him ter his long home.”
“‘Gene don’t keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt,” one of the others suggested tactlessly, “‘count o’ Minta Elladine Biggs.”
Eugene Barker’s off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity and his evident rancor as he declared: “I ain’t carin’ fur sech ez Watt Wyatt. An’ they do say in the cove that Minta Elladine Biggs hev gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin’ kyerds, a-bet-tin’ his money, drinkin’ apple-jack, an’ sech.”
The newly constituted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if to retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of-the coffin was the simulacrum of the figure of aman.
One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned a significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of a more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box.
The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed. The number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at least one of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the precipice and the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had gradually dwindled to a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and there washed out by recent rains, and one of these indentations might have afforded an active man access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had evidently kept abreast of them, speeding along in great leaps through the lush growth of huckleberry bushes, wild grasses, pawpaw thickets, silvered by the moon, all fringing the great forests that had given way on the shelving verge of the steeps where the road ran. Had he overheard their unguarded, significant words? Who could divine, so silent were the windless mountains, so deep a-dream the darksome woods, so spellbound the mute and mystic moonlight?
The group maintained a cautious reticence now, each revolving the problematic disclosure of their secret, each canvassing the question whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in midstream and stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, as the team manifested an inclination to drink in transit; and thence, as he stood thus perched, he gazed to and fro, the stretch of dark and lustrous ripples baffling all approach within ear-shot, the watering of the horses justifying the pause and cloaking its significance to any distant observer.
But the interval was indeed limited; the mental processes of such men are devoid of complexity, and their decisions prompt. They advanced few alternatives; their prime object was to be swiftly rid of the coffin and its inculpating contents, and with the “revenuer” so hard on their heels this might seem a troublous problem enough.
“Put it whar a coffin b’longs–in the churchyard,” said Wyatt; for at a considerable distance beyond the rise of the opposite bank could be seen a barren clearing in which stood a gaunt, bare, little white frame building that served all the country-side for its infrequent religious services.