News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-02-02
was like ascending great natural stair.


This night the mist had settled dow
until it hung an impenetrable curtain
shutting everything out into a region O
obscurity. Even Brettas sharp eye
could not distinguish objects more thai
a yard distant; but she clambered OF
fearlessly, secure in her perfect knowl
edge of the way. At length the patti
verged upon more level space, where
on one side there was sheer descent
OF hundred feet, and on the other the
rocks broke away in wide cleft OF
ravlne. The moon was struggling ur
outside the mist, lighting it now with 6
kind of Opaque brilliancy.
Bretta was half way across this ridge
stretching over this space to the next
ascent, when she paused at sight which
took away her breath ap1 held her
moti0nless as she gazed at it.
A woman's figure, taller, she knew,
than any living woman could be, white,
and dim, and wavering, stood up against
the mist out over the middle of the
precipice. 1t had long floating hair
waving about its shoulders, and seemed
to approach or recede as the mist
thickenei or was pierced by the moon
rays.
For moment Bretta lost speech and
thought, and gazed awe-stricken upon
it. Then her native courage came back,
and clasping her hands reverently, she
addressed it:
esprit, whatever thou art, what
wouIdst thou with me? ?"
The spirit did not speak, but as
Bretta folded her hands, threw up its
arms as though warning her back.
"Speak to el" Bretta cried, i'm
ploringly. "See, do not fear thee.
Tell me why thou hast sought me
here ?"
But the figure wavered away, and
Bretta turned to see the mist breaking
and rolling up before the bright moon
| light. When she looked again, spirit
and mist had vanished together. She
turned her face toward the mountain,
and there, few steps before her, the
ledge had crumbled away, leaving a
yawning gulf, into which she surely |
would have fallen had she attempted to |
traverse it through the mist.
"Ah, now I know it was a good |
spirit, !" she said to herself, "But for
it I should be lying down there bruised
and dying upon the rocks"
With a thankful heart Bretta crept
down the ledge and back through the
ravine, until she could regain the path
beyond the new-made fissure.
She found Crumple grazing near the
cow-yard, and shut her within, while
she went on to the cottage, where Dame
Breitmann had grown nervous over her
long absence.
"Child, child why wilt thou loiter
SO late? Thou wilt come to no good
by it,
'.'Never mind, granny" Bretta an
swered, with her usual careless laugh,
as she reached down the bright tin pail
from the shelf. 81 have come to no Ill
by it yet"
The dame sighed, and took up the
gray stocking from her lap. But her
thoughts were troubled, and her hands
trembled SO that she dropped stitches
from her needles and tangled the yarn
unbound from her ball.
Bretta, coming in with foaming,
brimming pail, found her straining her
eyes over the miswrought work.
''Let me do it, granny" she said,
with more thoughtfulness than she
often displayed. And taking the knit
ting from the aged hands, she kneeIed
down before the fire and proceeded to
set it right.
Dame Breitmann laid her quivering
hand upon the girls head, passing it
down the long locks which had escaped
from their fastening, then uttered a re-
proving exclamation:
Bretta, child, thy hair ia heavy with
damp! Why, where was thy bonnesP"
But Bretta was lost in her own
thoughts, and it was easy for the dame to
conjecture that she had carried head
covering instead of wearing it.
From that day the girl studied more
her grand-aunt's comfort.
When she sewed, she picked up the
scraps and lint she had scattered, in
stead of racing away, as heretofore, the
her task was done. A little
on her part spared the
good dame many painful step. The
latter wondered at the change and was
thankful; but knew not the cause of it,
for Bretta never told her that she had
seen the Spirit of the Mist.
The girl thought the specter she had
seen was a special protecting power,
and thinking that such was watching
over her, taught her greater gentleness
toward others who were not so favored.
For time the dame had no cause for
Then Bretta longed to see
the spirit again, and fingered late upon
ledge. But night after night passed
and it did not come.
Weeks passed. Bretta was gradually
going back to her old light ways. One
night she fingered late in the valley, and
speeding homeward. thought nothing
of the spirit until she reached the
ledge. She was half startled to find it
there again, pictured against the mist
midway out over the precipice. She
spoke, but it did not answer, and van
ished as before when the mist rolled
away in the moonlight.
A sound foated up from the void of
space which chilled her blood. But she
was brave girl, as we have seen, SO
she leaned far out over the pricipice,
striving to pierce the darkness beneath.
Then the sound was repeated again and
again, and she knew it to be the moan
of some one in pain.
She hallooed, and faint voice an
swered her. 1t was many minutes be-
fore she could make out the situation,
which we shall explain in a few words.
A man had been hunting on the noun
tain. Returning, he had lost his way,
and the mist closed down around him.
Wandering hither and thither, he had
missed his footing at last, and fallen
over the precipice. Down, down, bruis-
ing against projecting crags, until he
the branches of a scraggy pine |
tree, which had found root in crevice
and grew horizontally from it, thus I