Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/206

 sufficiently at ease to enjoy the attic salt of the Countess’s pleasantries; full of terror, they pressed close to her side, trembling and sobbing. “Ah! ’tis Rubezahl! ’tis the Spirit of the Mountain!” But Mamma, who believed not in spirits, rebuked the young ladies for their vulgar credulity, and undertook forthwith to prove to them that all ghost stories were the offspring of a disordered imagination; and that there never had been an alleged instance of spectral appearance which was not susceptible of a natural solution. She was getting on swimmingly with her argument, when Black Cloak, who had for a moment withdrawn himself from the watchful eye of John, came out of the thicket into the middle of the road. It was now found that John had, after all, made a mistake; the stranger was by no means without a head; only, instead of wearing it as usual, on his shoulders, he carried it, like a parcel, under his arm. Such an apparition within three yards of the coach was perfectly frightful. The young ladies, and the Abigail, who was in the habit of doing, as nearly as she could, everything they did, screamed with one scream; and then, on the principle of the ostrich, which, when it can run no further, drives its head into the sand, and so, not seeing the hunter, imagines the hunter cannot see him, they pulled down the carriage-blinds; and, no longer seeing Black Cloak, hoped to pass unobserved by him. Mamma clasped her hands