184 A BED OF BOUGHS. 



f; ' Sancta Maria speed us ! 

 The sun is fallen low : 

 Before us lies the valley 

 Of the Walker of the Snow ! '" 



" Ah ! " exclaimed my companion. " Let us pile 

 on more of those dry birch-logs ; I feel both the 

 * fear-chill ' and the i cold-chill ' creeping over me. 

 How far is it to the valley of the Neversink ? " 

 " About three or four hours' march, the man said." 

 " I hope we have no haunted valleys to cross." 

 "None," said I, "but we pass an old log-cabin 

 about which there hangs a ghostly superstition. At 

 a certain hour in the night, during the time the bark 

 is loose on the hemlock, a female form is said to 

 steal from it and grope its way into the wilderness. 

 The tradition runs that her lover, who was a bark- 

 peeler and wielded the spud, was killed by his rival, 

 who felled a tree upon him while they were at work. 

 The girl, who helped her mother cook for the 

 ' hands ' was crazed by the shock, and that night 

 stole forth into the woods and was never seen or 

 heard of more. There are old hunters who aver 

 that her cry may still be heard at night at the head 

 of the valley whenever a tree falls in the stillness of 

 the forest." 



" Well, I heard a tree fall not ten minutes ago," 

 said Aaron ; " a distant rushing sound with a sub- 

 dued crash at the end of it, and the only answering 

 cry I heard was the shrill voice of the screech-owl 

 off yonder against the mountain. But may be it 



