His Unquiet Ghost | Page 7

muscular instinct, apart
from reason, which guides in an oft-trodden path. Once he came to a
halt, from no uncertainty of locality, but to gaze apprehensively
through the blank, white mists over a shuddering shoulder. "I wonder ef
thar be any other harnts aloose ter-night, a-boguing through the fog an'
the moon," he speculated. Presently he went on again, shaking his head
sagely. "I ain't wantin' ter collogue with sech," he averred cautiously.
Occasionally the moonlight fell in expansive splendor through a rift in
the white vapor; amidst the silver glintings a vague, illusory panorama
of promontory and island, bay and inlet, far ripplings of gleaming
deeps, was presented like some magic reminiscence, some ethereal
replica of the past, the simulacrum of the seas of these ancient coves,
long since ebbed away and vanished.
The sailing moon visibly rocked, as the pulsing tides of the cloud-ocean
rose and fell, and ever and anon this supernal craft was whelmed in its
surgings, and once more came majestically into view, freighted with
fancies and heading for the haven of the purple western shores.
In one of these clearances of the mists a light of an alien type caught

the eye of the wandering spectre--a light, red, mundane, of prosaic
suggestion. It filtered through the crevice of a small batten shutter.
The ghost paused, his head speculatively askew. "Who sits so late at the
forge!" he marvelled, for he was now near the base of the mountain,
and he recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its
roof aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As
he neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a
deep, gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words
made the matter plain.
"High, Low, Jack, and game! Fork! Fork!" Once more there arose a
high falsetto shriek of jubilant laughter.
Walter Wyatt crept noiselessly down the steep slant toward the shutter.
He had no sense of intrusion, for he was often one of the merry blades
wont to congregate at the forge at night and take a hand at cards,
despite the adverse sentiment of the cove and the vigilance of the
constable of the district, bent on enforcing the laws prohibiting gaming.
As Wyatt stood at the crevice of the shutter the whole interior was
distinct before him--the disabled wagon-wheels against the walls, the
horse-shoes on a rod across the window, the great hood of the forge, the
silent bellows, with its long, motionless handle. A kerosene lamp,
perched on the elevated hearth of the forge, illumined the group of wild
young mountaineers clustered about a barrel on the head of which the
cards were dealt. There were no chairs; one of the gamesters sat on a
keg of nails; another on an inverted splint basket; two on a rude bench
that was wont to be placed outside the door for the accommodation of
customers waiting for a horse to be shod or a plow to be laid. An
onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his ambition of admission to
the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this coign of vantage beheld
all the outspread landscape of the "hands." More than once his
indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his survey of the
cards menaced him with a broken head. More innocuous to the interests
of the play was a wight humbly ensconced on the shoeing-stool, which
barely brought his head to the level of the board; but as he was densely
ignorant of the game, he took no disadvantage from his lowly posture.

His head was red, and as it moved erratically about in the gloom, Watt
Wyatt thought for a moment that it was the smith's red setter. He
grinned as he resolved that some day he would tell the fellow this as a
pleasing gibe; but the thought was arrested by the sound of his own
name.
"Waal, sir," said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, "I s'pose ye
hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's takin' off."
"An' none too soon, sartain." A sour visage was glimpsed beneath the
wide brim of the speaker's hat.
"Waal," drawled the semblance of the setter from deep in the
clare-obscure, "Watt war jes a fool from lack o' sense."
"That kind o' fool can't be cured," said another of the players. Then he
sharply adjuxed the dealer. "Look out what ye be doin'! Ye hev gimme
two kyerds."
"'Gene Barker will git ter marry Minta Elladine Biggs now, I reckon,"
suggested the man on the anvil.
"An' I'll dance at the weddin' with right good will an' a nimble toe,"
declared the dealer, vivaciously. "I'll be glad ter see that couple settled.
That gal couldn't make up her mind ter let Walter