'Deed, Marster, I really mus' go now, sah; dey's waitin' fer
me at de stables. And youse been down dar an' seen it! Oh, Lordy,
Lordy!'
"'Come back here,' said I, my curiosity getting the better of me. 'Don't
be a fool, old man; brace up. What's the trouble? You are not afraid to
speak out, eh?'
"'Well, Marse Livingstone, ef I mus' tell you, I 'spose I mus'--thar
doan' 'pear to be no help fer it. But I'd ruther not, boss; 'deed, I'd
ruther not.'
"'Go on; tell your story,' said I impatiently. 'I guess I can stand it.
Just try me, anyhow.' So in the semi-darkness a marvellous tale was
unfolded to my ears.
"In the first place, Uncle Ashby solemnly assured me that I had that day
seen a ghost. The flesh-and-blood Ailsee, he declared, had been dead
many years. Her father, Coot Harris, was a rough customer who took up
his abode in the marsh--'mash,' Uncle Tucker called it--at the close of
the Civil War. Here he gained a precarious livelihood by 'pot-hunting';
for Harris and others of his ilk paid but little attention to the poorly
enforced game laws of the section. Coot Harris, the marshman, had a
daughter, who, as Uncle Ashby contemptuously remarked, 'was peart enuff,
as pore white trash folkses go.'
"This daughter was named Ailsee. Thwarted by her father in some love
affair with a swain of the neighborhood, she had drowned herself in a
gloomy pool in the very darkest part of the forest.
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