110 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



lulled us ,to sleep by a long and characteristic 

 yarn. 



I had asked him, half jocosely, if he believed in 

 " spooks ; " but he took my question seriously, and 

 without answering it directly, proceeded to tell us 

 what he himself had known and witnessed. It 

 was, by the way, extremely difficult either to sur- 

 prise or to steal upon any of Uncle Nathan's pri- 

 vate opinions and beliefs about matters and things. 

 He was as shy of all debatable subjects as a fox 

 is of a trap. He usually talked in a circle, just as 

 he hunted moose and caribou, so as not to approach 

 his point too rudely and suddenly. He would keep 

 on the lee side of his interlocutor in spite of all one 

 could do. He was thoroughly good and reliable, 

 but the wild creatures of the woods, in pursuit of 

 which he had spent so much of his life, had taught 

 him a curious gentleness and indirection, and to 

 keep himself in the background; he was careful 

 that you should not scent his opinions upon any 

 subject at all polemic, but he would tell you what 

 he had seen and known. What he had seen and 

 known about spooks was briefly this: In company 

 with a neighbor he was passing the night with an 

 old recluse who lived somewhere in these woods. 

 Their host was an Englishman, who had the repu- 

 tation of having murdered his wife some years 

 before in another part of the country, and, deserted 

 by his grown-up children, was eking out his days 

 in poverty amid these solitudes. The three men 

 were sleeping upon the floor, with Uncle Nathan 



