CHAPTER XVII HOW THE POSTMASTER SAW A GHOST

On the day when Philip fell into the avalanche, although it was likely to break away from the face of the mountain at any moment and come thundering down on the rocks below, not a single person came to the office to watch with the postmaster, who went outside from time to time and gazed up into the mist, and then, with a sigh of relief, returned to his arm-chair before the fireplace. In better weather he would have had plenty of gossiping company, for avalanche day was quite the liveliest day in his calendar. Despite the rain which kept pattering on the low roof, he hoped that the snow and ice would hold fast to the rock until the sun came again; but nevertheless his old ears were constantly on the alert for the crash which he feared.

On many a January day, in the years that were past, he had occupied his favorite chair in the warm sun against the east wall of the office, surrounded by his neighbors, watching the glittering mass, and noting the small fragments of ice which broke away from time to time before the final crash. He had heard nothing yet, and as the gloomy afternoon wore on he began to be almost certain that he was not to lose his holiday, after all.

The postmaster, though living so much alone, had a way of talking to himself, and on this occasion he was more talkative than ever, because of the uneasiness he felt.

"Hit's a quare thing," he said, getting up and kicking the logs into a blaze, and then sitting down again in his sheepskin-cushioned chair. "Hit's plumb quare."

By way of making these solitary talks more sociable, the old man had developed a clever habit of talking in dialogue, imagining himself for the time in the company of some congenial spirit, for whom he spoke as well as for himself. On this particular occasion his imaginary companion was a mountain woman for whom he had felt a sentimental regard years before, but to whom he had never told his love.

"What's quare, 'Manuel? Why, look here, 'Liz'beth; I've sorted the mail here more 'n thirty year, watchin' the avalanches fall off yonder mounting, an' in all that time I've never set my foot onto the top of hit. Most of us on this side hain't, 'Manuel; an' since the bridge rotted away an' tumbled into the gorge, there ain't no way o' gittin' thar. 'Liz'beth, I'm nat'rally a venturesome man, though I never showed it to you, 'Liz'beth, when I ought to. That's what ye didn't. I'm a venturesome man; an' this here is what I've made up my mind to, 'Liz'beth Hough. I'm detarmined to see the top o' that mounting afore I'm a year older; an' I've set the time, 'Liz'beth—nothin' personal in that, but meanin' that when the dogwood blossoms in the spring I'm goin' to find some way to git up thar. How'll ye do hit, 'Manuel? Hit's likely I'll fall a tree across the gorge. Don't do hit, 'Manuel. Why not?"

The postmaster looked wise, and put out his hand as if he were playfully touching his imaginary companion under the chin. "Why not, 'Liz'beth? Because folks do say that the old man that lived up thar was murdered, an' that his spirit has took the form of a harnt, an' brings bad luck to such as goes up thar to disturb him."

The postmaster rose and kicked the fire impatiently. "Bah! I'm a bold man, 'Liz'beth, past occasions notwithstandin'. I'm sot an' detarmined to do hit when the dogwood-trees blossom out, an' I'm 'lowin' you'll come an' tend the office, 'Liz'beth, while I'm gone."

The postmaster stood with his back to the fire, looking down over his left shoulder to where the imaginary form of Elizabeth sat.

"You'll come an' spell me, will ye, 'Liz'beth? You allus was a 'commodatin' woman. No, there ain't nothin' for ye to-day—not so much as a paper. Don't be in a hurry. This here idee of explorin' that mounting has took a powerful hold on me, sure. Nothin' that you can say will prevent me from so doin'. Well, if you must go, 'Liz'beth, I s'pose hit's high time I was gittin' my supper. After I wash the dishes, I 'low to walk across to the big road an' see if there's any tracks. Good-by, 'Liz'beth. Good-by, 'Manuel."

The postmaster was silent while he raked out a bed of coals and set the three-legged iron skillet over the very hottest place. Then he mixed some Indian meal with milk and a pinch of salt, and having patted it down in the skillet, he put on the cover, and filled the rim with more coals and some burning embers. After he had buried a potato in the ashes, and set the coffee down to warm over, he broke out again:

"I couldn't 'a' been mistaken about there bein' nothin' for 'Liz'beth. I sort o' spoke at random, knowin' that the last letter she got was in '68, month o' May." Then he stepped back so as to look through the letter-boxes, which were before the south window. "There's nothin' in H except a linch-pin, an' I 'low that oughter be in L—no, that's for Riley Hooper. Hello! hit's clearin'. There'll be a moon to-night, an' nothin' 's goin' to drap afore to-morrow."

After he had eaten, and put away the supper-things, the postmaster took down his rifle from the rack over the door, and stepped out into the clearing.

The sky was not yet free from rolling clouds, which were drifting into the east across the face of the great full moon that hung directly over the mountain. Stretching away to the seamed rock where the avalanche hung was a wide old field, broken by rocks and bristling with girdled trees, whose dead limbs wriggled upward and outward like the hundred hands of Briareus. The postmaster kept to the foot-worn trail, shuffling over the wet leaves, and glancing up now and then at the granite front of old Whiteside with great satisfaction, not only because the avalanche was safe for the night, but because he loved to think that whatever secrets the mountain held would be his when the dogwood-blossoms came in the spring.

He went as far as the big road, and finding plenty of fresh tracks, he kept on in the direction of Cashiers until he came to a cabin where the bright warm light glowed through the chinks between the logs and through the cracks about the chimney as if the place were on fire. By the merry laughter he heard and the scraping of a violin he knew that a frolic was going on, and he chuckled to think that he had in his pocket a certain letter which would be a convenient excuse for dropping in on the revelers.

The postmaster must have been welcome in his own social person over and above the favor of the letter he brought, for it was hard upon twelve o'clock when he came out and took his way homeward, feeling jollier than he had felt for many a day, and carrying a cake in a paper parcel under his arm for the coming festivities at the office.

"Who'd 'a' thought," he said, turning to look back at the lighted cabin, where the revelry was at its height, "that I'd 'a' been dancin' a figger this night on the puncheons with 'Liz'beth Hough? Hit sort o' took all the boldness out o' me when she come over an' asted me. I don't 'low any other human could 'a' cowed me that-a-way. I'm a bold man under ordinary conditions prevailin' an' takin' place. I ain't easy to skeer," he continued as he resumed his walk, "leastways where men is concarned."

It was cold now, and still, and the wrinkled mud on the road was curdled with frost. The moon was well over to the west range. The last cloud had disappeared, and the stars were like jewels in the sky through the bare limbs of the trees. He was in such a rare state of exhilaration that he was more talkative than ever, and kept up a running conversation with first one neighbor and then another, until his cheerful dialogue, which had brought him to the border of his own field and in sight of the office, was rudely interrupted by the "too-hoot" of an owl somewhere among the girdled trees.

"Shet up," said the postmaster, carefully laying the cake down on the leaves, and cocking his rifle. "Good night, Riley. Linch-pin's come; twelve cents postage stamped on the tag. Good night, 'Manuel. I must tend to this sassy critter, interruptin' of his betters. Where be ye, anyway? Know enough to hold yer tongue, don't ye'? I'll let ye know I'm a bold man, leastways—" and with that he fired his gun at random. In the windless night the sharp report seemed to strike against the granite mountain and be thrown back like a ball of sound, to go bounding across the Cove, rolling into the distance.

The postmaster reloaded his gun and eased the lock down upon a fresh cap before he took up the cake, muttering at the owl, and then chuckling to think that he had silenced his rival.

He turned out of the trail to a little knoll which commanded a clear view of the granite mountain, streaked down with black storm-stains that looked like huge banners fluttering out from the shining mass of snow and ice clinging to the crest.

The postmaster gazed upward for some minutes, and then moved on in silence toward the office, under the girdled trees. The avalanche was uppermost in his mind, however, and before he had gone far he stopped on another place of vantage to take a last fond look.

"Freezin' tighter an' tighter every blessed minute," he began. "When the dogwood-trees blossom in the spring-time, old rock, I'll let ye know I'm a bold—"

He never finished the sentence.

The cake and the rifle fell to the ground, and the postmaster's jaw dropped on its hinges. Cold chills ran up his back and blew like a wind through his hair, while the blood seemed to throb in his ears. He was powerless to speak. He could only gaze with his bulging eyes at the small figure which rose slowly from the roots of the great icicles and then stood motionless and black against the snow. It looked to be a figure, so small and far away in the uncertain moonlight, and yet it stood where no living man could possibly be. His first conviction was that he saw the spirit of the old man of the mountain, who, for one reason or another, was believed to rest uneasily in his grave; and when the small object began to thresh the air with its arms like the wings of a windmill, he had no further doubt that it was the dreadful "harnt" of whom 'Liz'beth had warned him. With a howl he turned and fled over the field in the direction of the office, and as he ran the owl resumed its dismal note—"Too-hoo, too-hoot." As many times as he fell down he clambered upon his feet again, and ran on, never daring to look back at the "harnt" waving its ghostly arms above the roots of the great icicles. He thought his time had come, for he had heard that men never lived who had once seen the dead; and all the time, as he ran, the mocking cry of the owl resounded through the woods.

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."

The postmaster obeyed in a dazed sort of way, and when he was on his feet he shook the straws and bits of corn-husks from his clothing, the old brindle ox looking at the two men with his mild eyes from his place in the corner.

"What made ye drap these things out in the field, 'Manuel?" said the man.

"Come into the office, Jonas," said the postmaster, leading the way; and then he told the other of the fearful sight he had seen.

The sun was warm after the rain, and soon others began to come,—men and women,—and he told his story again and again, to the awe and amazement of his simple listeners.

"I seen a quare streak down the long bank, as I came through the woods," said one man; "I did sure." And then they all went out into the field where the gun and the cake had been found. Sure enough, there was a dull line plainly to be seen on the smooth crust of the snow. They all agreed that this was the track of the "harnt," who had amused himself in the night-time by climbing up and sliding down on the face of the avalanche.

The story spread through the settlements, and no man was bold enough thereafter to think of bridging the gorge to get upon the haunted mountain.