Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/582

 A Country Lawyers Christmas Eve. felt my blood curdle and freeze, and I verily believe that my hair stood on end. The eyes — whatever may be the physical explanation of the lighting — shone clearly out from the darkness. I could see dimly and indistinctly the figure of the person to whom they be longed, looming a little darker than the black surrounding night. But the eyes were weirdly bright. They were turned on me " most constantly." I could not speak. Nor, beyond violently trembling, could I move. I seemed incapable of anything but passive terror. The horse, no less agitated, seemed as powerless as myself. It sought neither to advance nor retire. How long we remained so, I cannot tell; but the time seemed interminable. At last the spectre, for so I thought it, came to wards the gig, stepped sedately into it, and sat down in the vacant place, — all in abso lute silence. As it did so, I could see more distinctly what manner of person it was. The results of this closer observation were not calculated to reassure me. A tall, spare man, with sunken cheeks beneath his awful eyes; long, bony, nervous fingers; his dress a thin black coat and gray trousers; no cov ering on his head, no gloves on his hands. Yet he did not seem cold; and, somehow or other, the snow did not cling to him as it did to me. It seemed to shrink from him and fall aside. A strange figure to meet in such weather, at such a time and place! I still doubted his humanity most strongly; but my terror of him even as human was not a whit less intense and paralyzing, when, as he stretched out his hands to take the reins from my grasp, I saw that they were red with blood! I resigned the reins even before he touched them, and the horse started at once. We drove on in silence several miles. The agony of terror which I then endured I cannot describe, and shall not attempt to do so. I vainly tried to throw it off from time to time by an attempt to be lieve that the hideous experience I was then passing through was only a dream, — a dreadful nightmare; and that I should wake

531

erelong to find myself snugly in bed, or even still dozing before my sitting-room fire. But the efforts were sickly, and proved in effectual against the terribly real feelings and surroundings; and I abandoned them at length. Then I tried to bring myself to address the mysterious being beside me. As futile an effort as the other; I could not utter a sound. He drew a blood-stained handkerchief from his pocket, and dried his forehead. Snow and frost appeared to have no effect on him, — he was perspiring pro fusely! Then, without looking at me, he took my hat off my head and put it on his own. Whether or not this strange being was impressed with a sense of justice, and meant it as a compensation for the loss of my hat, I cannot tell; but he thrust into my pocket a peculiarly shaped jar (which I in stinctively knew to contain loathsome leeches!) and three billiard balls. We were now nearing a second bridge by which the road recrosses the river. My weird companion threw down the reins, as it seemed to me, on the first roar of the swollen current reaching his ears. He folded his arms across his chest, and stared sternly and moodily before him. Between dark rows of snow-laden trees, round a sharp turn, we went; and then the bridge rose before us, — rose abruptly to the middle, nar row, dark, and dismal. We reached the middle of it, and the horse almost stopped. The river rushed a perfect torrent below, crashing against rocks and banks, and dash ing huge masses of ice furiously against every obstacle that had the hardihood to oppose it. My companion stood bolt up right in the gig, sprang on to the parapet, waved his arms wildly, and leaped into the torrent! Above all the roar and furious tumult I thought I could distinguish the ghastly splash with which the black waters received and closed over him. Then my head swam round, and I lost all consciousness for a time, — for how long, I had no means of guessing. My first recol lection thereafter is of careering along at a