“Some o’ the wimmen tried to get somethin’ out o’ Quassy. Lordy massy! you might as well ’a’ tried to get it out an old tom-turkey, that’ll strut and gobble and quitter, and drag his wings on the ground, and fly at you, but won’t say nothin’. Quassy she screeched her queer sort o’ laugh; and she told ’em that they was a makin’ fools o’ themselves, and that the cap’n’s matters wa’n’t none o’ their bisness; and that was true enough. As to goin’ into Quassia’s room, or into any o’ the store-rooms or closets she kep’ the keys of, you might as well hev gone into a lion’s den. She kep’ all her places locked up tight; and there was no gettin’ at nothin’ in the Cap’n Brown house, else I believe some o’ the wimmen would ’a’ sent a sarch-warrant.”
“Well,” said I, “what came of it? Didn’t anybody ever find out?”
“Wal,” said Sam, “it come to an end sort o’, and didn’t come to an end. It was jest this ’ere way. You see, along in October, jest in the cider-makin’ time, Abel Flint he was took down with dysentery and died. You ’member the Flint house: it stood on a little rise o’ ground jest lookin’ over towards the Brown house. Wal, there was Aunt Sally Dickerson and the Widder Bije Smith, they set up with the corpse. He was laid out in the back chamber, you see, over the milk-room and kitchen; but there was cold victuals and sich in the front chamber, where the watchers sot. Wal, now, Aunt Sally she told me that between three and four o’clock she heard wheels a rumblin’, and she went to the winder, and it was clear starlight; and she see a coach come up to the Cap’n Brown house; and she see the cap’n come out bringin’ a woman all wrapped in a cloak, and old Quassy came arter with her arms full o’ bundles; and he put her into the kerridge, and shet her in, and it driv off; and she see old Quassy stand lookin’ over the fence arter it. She tried to wake up the widder, but ’twas towards mornin’, and the widder allers was a hard sleeper; so there wa’n’t no witness but her.’
“Well, then, it wasn’t a ghost,” said I, “after all, and it _was_ a woman.”
“Wal, there ’tis, you see. Folks don’t know that ’are yit, ’cause there it’s jest as broad as ’tis long. Now, look at it. There’s Cinthy, she’s a good, pious gal: she locks her chamber-doors, both on ’em, and goes to bed, and wakes up in the night, and there’s a woman there. She jest shets her eyes, and the woman’s gone. She gits up and looks, and both doors is locked jest as she left ’em. That ’ere woman wa’n’t flesh and blood now, no way,--not such flesh and blood as we knows on; but then they say Cinthy might hev dreamed it!