Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country

  Chapter 11

  The fifth summer was passing since we came down Paradise Road--the dog,Uncle Eb and I. Times innumerable I had heard my good old friend tellthe story of our coming west until its every incident was familiar tome as the alphabet. Else I fear my youthful memory would have served mepoorly for a chronicle of my childhood so exact and so extended as thisI have written. Uncle Eb's hair was white now and the voices of theswift and the panther had grown mild and tremulous and unsatisfactoryand even absurd. Time had tamed the monsters of that imaginarywilderness and I had begun to lose my respect for them. But one fear hadremained with me as I grew older--the fear of the night man. Every boyand girl in the valley trembled at the mention of him. Many a time I hadheld awake in the late evening to hear the men talk of him before theywent asleep--Uncle Eb and Tip Taylor. I remember a night when Tip said,in a low awesome tone, that he was a ghost. The word carried into mysoul the first thought of its great and fearful mystery.

  'Years and years ago,' said he, 'there was a boy by the name of NehemiahBrower. An' he killed another boy, once, by accident an' run away an'was drownded.'

  'Drownded!' said Uncle Eb. 'How?'

  'In the ocean,' the first answered gaping. 'Went away off 'round theworld an' they got a letter that said he was drownded on his way to VanDieman's Land.'

  'To Van Dieman's Land!'

  'Yes, an some say the night man is the ghost o' the one he killed.'

  I remember waking that night and hearing excited whispers at the windownear my bed. It was very dark in the room and at first I could not tellwho was there.

  'Don't you see him?' Tip whispered.

  'Where?' I heard Uncle Be ask

  'Under the pine trees--see him move.'

  At that I was up at the window myself and could plainly see the darkfigure of a man standing under the little pine below us.

  'The night man, I guess,' said Uncle Be, 'but he won't do no harm. Lethim alone; he's going' away now.'

  We saw him disappear behind the trees and then we got back into our bedsagain. I covered my head with the bedclothes and said a small prayer forthe poor night man.

  And in this atmosphere of mystery and adventure, among the plain folk ofFaraway, whose care of me when I was in great need, and whose love ofme always, I count among the priceless treasures of God's providence, mychildhood passed. And the day came near when I was to begin to play mypoor part in the world.

  BOOK TWO