“Hallo! you Cass!” said Legree, “what’s in the wind now?”

“Nothing; only I choose to have another room,” said Cassy, doggedly.

“And what for, pray?” said Legree.

“I choose to,” said Cassy.

“The devil you do! and what for?”

“I’d like to get some sleep, now and then.”

“Sleep! well, what hinders your sleeping?”

“I could tell, I suppose, if you want to hear,” said Cassy, dryly.

“Speak out, you minx!” said Legree.

“O! nothing.  I suppose it wouldn’t disturb you! Only groans, and people scuffing, and rolling round on the barre, floor, half the night, from twelve to morning!”

“People up garret!” said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a laugh; “who are they, Cassy?”

Cassy raised her sharp, black eyes, and looked in the face of Legree, with an expression that went through his bones, as she said, “To be sure, Simon, who are they?  I’d like to have you tell me.  You don’t know, I suppose!”

With an oath, Legree struck at her with his riding-whip; but she glided to one side, and passed through the door, and looking back, said, “If you’ll sleep in that room, you’ll know all about it.  Perhaps you’d better try it!” and then immediately she shut and locked the door.

Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down the door; but apparently thought better of it, and walked uneasily into the sitting-room.  Cassy perceived that her shaft had struck home; and, from that hour, with the most exquisite address, she never ceased to continue the train of influences she had begun.

In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had inserted the neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that when there was the least wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds proceeded from it, which, in a high wind, increased to a perfect shriek, such as to credulous and superstitious ears might easily seem to be that of horror and despair.

These sounds were, from time to time, heard by the servants, and revived in full force the memory of the old ghost legend.  A superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill the house; and though no one dared to breathe it to Legree, he found himself encompassed by it, as by an atmosphere.

No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.  The Christian is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light and order; but to the man who has dethroned God, the spirit-land is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew poet, “a land of darkness and the shadow of death,” without any order, where the light is as darkness.  Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.

Legree had had the slumbering moral elements in him roused by his encounters with Tom,—­roused, only to be resisted by the determinate force of evil; but still there was a thrill and commotion of the dark, inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted in superstitious dread.