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Mary Noailles Murfree
The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge, and Other Stories
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4064066172480
Table of Contents
THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS
Across the narrow gorge the little foot-bridge stretched—a brace of logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a cedar pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the dark and rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, swift and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all ordinary usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and elusive travellers who by common report frequented it.
"We ain't likely ter meet nobody. Few folks kem this way nowadays, 'thout it air jes' ter ford the creek down along hyar a piece, sence harnts an' sech onlikely critters hev been viewed a-crossin' the foot-bredge. An' it hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble onlucky, too," said Roxby.
His interlocutor drew back slightly. He had his own reasons to recoil from the subject of death. For him it was invested with a more immediate terror than is usual to many of the living, with that flattering persuasion of immortality in every strong pulsation repudiating all possibility of cessation. Then, lifting his gloomy, long-lashed eyes to the bridge far up the stream, he asked, "Whose 'harnts'?"
His voice had a low, repressed cadence, as of one who speaks seldom, grave, even melancholy, and little indicative of the averse interest that had kindled in his sombre eyes. In comparison the drawl of the mountaineer, who had found him heavy company by the way, seemed imbued with an abnormal vivacity, and keyed a tone or two higher than was its wont.
"Thar ain't a few," he replied, with a sudden glow of the pride of the cicerone. "Thar's a graveyard t'other side o' the gorge, an' not more than a haffen-mile off, an' a cornsider'ble passel o' folks hev been buried thar off an' on, an' the foot-bredge ain't in nowise ill-convenient ter them."
Thus demonstrating the spectral resources of the locality, he rode his horse well into the stream as he spoke, and dropped the reins that the animal's impatient lips might reach the water. He sat facing the foot-bridge, flecked with the alternate shifting of the sunshine and the shadows of the tremulous firs that grew on either side of the high banks on the ever-ascending slope, thus arching both above and below the haunted bridge. His companion had joined him in the centre of the stream; but while the horses drank, the stranger's eyes were persistently bent on the concentric circles of the water that the movement of the animals had set astir in the current, as if he feared that too close or curious a gaze might discern some pilgrim, whom he cared not to see, traversing that shadowy quivering foot-bridge. He was mounted on a strong, handsome chestnut, as marked a contrast to his guide's lank and trace-galled sorrel as were the two riders. A slender gloved hand had fallen with the reins to the pommel of the saddle. His soft felt hat, like a sombrero, shadowed his clear-cut face. He was carefully shaven, save for a long drooping dark mustache and imperial. His suit of dark cloth was much concealed by a black cloak, one end of which thrown back across his shoulder showed a bright blue lining, the color giving a sudden heightening touch to his attire, as if he were "in costume." It was a fleeting fashion of the day, but it added a certain picturesqueness to a horseman, and seemed far enough from the times that produced the square-tailed frock-coat which the mountaineer wore, constructed of brown jeans, the skirts of which stood stiffly out on each side of the saddle, and gave him, with his broad-brimmed hat, a certain Quakerish aspect.
"I dun'no' why folks be so 'feared of 'em," Roxby remarked, speculatively. "The dead ain't so oncommon, nohow. Them ez hev been in the war, like you an' me done, oughter be in an' 'bout used ter corpses—though I never seen none o' 'em afoot agin. Lookin' at a smit field o' battle, arter the rage is jes' passed, oughter gin a body a realizin' sense how easy the sperit kin flee, an' what pore vessels fur holdin' the spark o' life human clay be."
Simeon Roxby had a keen, not unkindly face, and he had that look of extreme intelligence which is entirely distinct from intellectuality, and which one sometimes sees in a minor degree in a very clever dog or a fine horse. One might rely on him to understand instinctively everything one might say to him, even in its subtler æsthetic values, although he had consciously learned little. He was of the endowed natures to whom much is given, rather than of those who are set to acquire. He had many lines in his face—even his simple life had gone hard with him, its sorrows unassuaged by its simplicity. His hair was grizzled, and hung long and straight on his collar. He wore a grizzled beard cut broad and short. His boots had big spurs, although the lank old sorrel had never felt them. He sat his horse like the cavalryman he had been for four years of hard riding and raiding, but his face had a certain gentleness that accented the Quaker-like suggestion of his garb, a look of communing with the higher things.
"I never blamed 'em," he went on, evidently reverting to the spectres of the bridge—"I never blamed 'em for comin' back wunst in a while. It 'pears ter me 'twould take me a long time ter git familiar with heaven, an' sociable with them ez hev gone before. An', my Lord, jes' think what the good green yearth is! Leastwise the mountings. I ain't settin' store on the valley lands I seen whenst I went ter the wars. I kin remember yit what them streets in the valley towns smelt like."
He lifted his head, drawing a long breath to inhale the exquisite fragrance of the fir, the freshness of the pellucid water, the aroma of the autumn wind, blowing through the sere leaves still clinging red and yellow to the boughs of the forest.
"Naw, I ain't blamin' 'em, though I don't hanker ter view 'em," he resumed. "One of 'em I wouldn't be afeard of, though. I feel mighty sorry fur her. The old folks used ter tell about her. A young 'oman she war, a-crossin' this bredge with her child in her arms. She war young, an' mus' have been keerless, I reckon; though ez 'twar her fust baby, she moughtn't hev been practised in holdin' it an' sech, an' somehows it slipped through her arms an' fell inter the ruver, an' war killed in a minit, dashin' agin the rocks. She jes' stood fur a second a-screamin' like a wild painter, an' jumped off'n the bredge arter it. She got it agin; for when they dragged her body out'n the ruver she hed it in her arms too tight fur even death ter onloose. An' thar they air together in the buryin'-ground."
He gave a nod toward the slope of the mountain that intercepted the melancholy view of the graveyard.
"Got it yit!" he continued; "bekase" (he lowered his voice) "on windy nights, whenst the moon is on the wane, she is viewed kerryin' the baby along the bredge—kerryin' it clear over, safe an' sound, like she thought she oughter done, I reckon, in that one minute, whilst she stood an' screamed an' surveyed what she hed done. That child would hev been nigh ter my age ef he hed lived."
Only the sunbeams wavered athwart the bridge now as the firs swayed above, giving glimpses of the sky, and their fibrous shadows flickered back and forth. The wild mountain stream flashed white between the brown bowlders, and plunged down the gorge in a succession of cascades, each seeming more transparently green and amber and brown than the other. The chestnut horse gazed meditatively at these limpid out-gushings, having drunk