Perhaps the invisible man heard them. At any rate he did not chop that evening. It was only his cousin’s axe that gave the good strokes that poor Angus heard as he turned from the track to cross the grove as usual. The tree was swaying and shivering, and all but ready to fall. He had cut trees all his life, and he knew the sound of the stroke when the task was almost done; but no goblin’s trick would beguile him into turning his head. He looked neither to right nor left. Then the chopping ceased, and his blood nearly froze as he heard his own name shouted in tones of such horror that a familiar voice was unrecognized. Others caught up the cry. There was a din, the crashing of branches and sound of rushing feet, mingled with shouts of warning, and poor Angus fell, with the enormous tree upon him. When at last the burden was removed, and the crushed body borne home, there were men there who heard among the trees inhuman laughter, and knew that Something had lured poor Angus to his doom.
Another weird tale, that made a strong impression on me, I wrote down at the time, and called—
The title seemed very effective then, though now it strikes me as more alliterative than true, as it concerns a single stick and not a fagot at all. It was a round stick about five feet long, probably the trunk of a young ash tree brought home from the woods to serve some purpose as a pole. It lay forgotten in the back yard of a farmhouse close to a little village called L——. It was a fine strong pole about twice as thick as a man’s wrist. The sun seasoned it day by day, so that it soon was no longer “green” wood, but wood that would have crackled well in the fire. But for whatever purpose it had been brought home, it seemed oddly forgotten. No use was made of it.
One day one of the young men of the family went to the “bush,” spent an hour there, and returned with just such another long, straight sapling. He dragged it into the yard, and his eye fell on the first one. “There,” said he, “I’ve had little to do spending my time seeking a pole, and this one ready to my hand all the while.”
“Aye,” said Mary his sister, standing in the doorway, “that is what I’m telling them. Since that pole was brought, father has taken a bar from the gateway, and Neil has cut down a young tree in the pasture, and you’ve been seeking in the bush, all of you wanting this same pole that’s only lying in the way.”