Part 35

A moth brushes her cheek and she straightens suddenly.

The moon is partly hidden behind a cloud; even so by its faint light you can see the clump of pawpaw bushes, and beyond--the outline of the rugged hills. Farther off in the burying ground atop the ridge the marble figure of the leader of the Hatfields rises against the half-darkened sky.

At first you think it is the sound of the wind in the pines far off in the hollow, then as it moves toward the burying ground it changes to that of low moaning voices.

You feel Molly's arm trembling against your own.

"Listen!" she whispers fearfully, all her courage gone. "It's Devil Anse and his boys. Look yonder!"--she tugs at your sleeve--"See for yourself they're going down to the waters of baptism!"

Following the direction of the woman's quick trembling hand you strain forward.

At first there seems to be a low mist rolling over the burying ground and then suddenly, to your amazement, the mist or cloud dissolves itself into shafts or pillars of the height of the white figure of Devil Anse above the grave. They form in line and now one figure, the taller, moves ahead of all the rest. Six there were following the leader. You see distinctly as they move slowly through the crumbling tombstones, down the mountain side toward the creek.

"Devil Anse and his boys," repeats the trembling Molly, "going down into the waters of baptism. They ever do of a foggy night in the falling weather. And look yonder! There's the ghost too of Uncle Dyke Garrett a-waiting at the water's edge. He's got the Good Book opened wide in his hand."

Whether it is the giant trunk of a tree with perhaps a leafless branch extended, who can say? Or is nature playing a prank with your vision? But, surely, in the eerie moonlight there seems to appear the figure of a man with arm extended, book in hand, waiting to receive the seven phantom penitents moving slowly toward the water's edge.

After that you don't lose much time in being on your way. And if anyone should ask you what of interest is to be seen along Main Island Creek, if you are prudent you'll answer, "The marble statue of Capt. Anderson Hatfield." And if you knew him in life you'll add, "And a fine likeness it is too."

THE WINKING CORPSE

On the night of June 22, 1887, the bodies of four dead men lay wrapped in sheets on cooling boards in the musty sitting room of an old boarding house in Morehead, Rowan County, Kentucky. Only the bullet-shattered faces, besmeared with blood, were exposed. Their coffins had not yet arrived from the Blue Grass. No friend or kinsman watched beside the bier that sultry summer night; they had prudently kept to their homes, for excitement ran high over the battle that had been fought that day in front of the old hostelry which marked, with the death of the four, the end of the Martin-Tolliver feud.

While the bodies lay side-by-side in the front part of the shambling house, there sat in the kitchen, so the story goes, a slatternly old crone peeling potatoes for supper--should the few straggling boarders return with an appetite, now that all the shooting was over.

It was the privilege of old women like Phronie in the mountains of Kentucky to go unmolested and help out as they felt impelled in times of troubles such as these between the Martins and Tollivers.

The place was strangely quiet. Indeed the old boarding house was deserted. For those who had taken the law in their own hands that day in Rowan County had called a meeting at the courthouse farther up the road. The citizenry of the countryside, save kin and friend of the slain feudists, had turned out to attend.

"Nary soul to keep watch with the dead," Phronie complained under her breath. "It's dark in yonder. Dark and still as the grave. A body's got to have light. How else can they see to make it to the other world?" She paused to sharpen her knife on the edge of the crock, glancing cautiously now and then toward the door of the narrow hallway that led to the room where the dead men lay.

The plaintive call of a whippoorwill far off beyond Triplett Creek, where one of the men had been killed that day, drifted into the quiet house.

"It's a sorry song for sorry times," murmured old Phronie, "and it ought to tender the heart of them that's mixed up in these troubles. No how, whosoever's to blame, the dead ort not to be forsaken."

There was a sound behind her. Phronie turned to see the hall door opening slowly. "Who's there?" she called. But no one answered. The door opened wider. But no one entered.

"It's a sign," the old woman whispered. "Well, no one can ever say Phronie forsaken the dead." It was as though the old crone answered an unspoken command. She put down the crock of potatoes and the paring knife. Wiping her hands on her apron, Phronie took the oil lamp, with its battered tin reflector, from the wall. "Can't no one ever say I forsaken the dead," she repeated, "nor shunned a sign or token. The dead's got to have light same as the living."

Holding the lamp before her, she passed slowly along the narrow hall on to the room where the dead men lay wrapped in their sheets. She drew a chair from a corner and climbed upon it and hung the lamp above the mantel. It was the chair on which Craig Tolliver, alive and boastful and fearless, had sat that morning when she had brought him hot coffee and cornbread while he kept an eye out for the posse, the self-appointed citizens who later killed the Tolliver leader and his three companions.

The flickering light of the oil lamp fell upon the ghastly faces of the dead men.

For a moment the old woman gazed at the still forms. Then suddenly her glance fixed itself upon the face of Craig Tolliver.

Slowly the lashes of Craig's right eye moved ever so slightly.

Phronie was sure of it. She gripped the back of the chair on which she stood to steady herself, for now the lid of the dead man's eye twitched convulsively. As the trembling old woman gaped, the eye of the slain feudist opened and shut. Not once, but three times, quick as a wink.

"God-a-mighty!" shrieked Phronie, "he ain't dead! Craig Tolliver ain't dead!" She leaped from the chair and ran fast as her crooked old limbs would carry her, shrieking as she went, "Craig Tolliver ain't dead!"

Some say it was just the notion of an old woman gone suddenly raving crazy, though others, half believing, still tell the story of the winking corpse.

THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN GABLES