[69]
crying out, ‘O Thankful!
Thankful! John Gibbins has appeared to us!
His spirit is in the barn!’
The plates dropt from my cousin's hand, and, with a faint cry, she fell back against the wall for a little space; when, hearing a man's voice without, speaking her name, she ran to the door, with the look of one beside herself; while I, trembling to see her in such a plight, followed her. There was a clear moon, and a tall man stood in the light close to the door.
‘John,’ said my cousin, in a quick, choking voice, ‘is it you?’
‘Why, Thankful, don't you know me?
I'm alive; but the folks in the barn will have it that I'm a ghost,’ said the man, springing towards her.
With a great cry of joy and wonder, my cousin caught hold of him: ‘O John, you are alive!’
Then she swooned quite away, and we had a deal to do to bring her to life again.
By this time, the house was full of people, and among the rest came John's old mother and his sisters, and we all did weep and laugh at the same time.
As soon as we got a little quieted, John told us that he had indeed been grievously stunned by the blow of a tomahawk, and been left for dead by his comrades, but that after a time he did come to his senses, and was able to walk; but, falling into the hands of the Indians, he was carried off to the French Canadas, where, by reason of his great sufferings on the way, he fell sick, and lay for a long time at the point of death.
That when he did get about again, the savage who lodged him, and who had taken him as a son, in the place of his own, slain
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Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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