still, it
being, as I judge, nigh midnight, I chanced to touch with my foot a
pumpkin lying near the bed, which set it a-rolling down the stairs,
bumping hard on every stair as it went. Thereupon I heard a great stir
below, the woman and her three daughters crying out that the house was
haunted. Presently she called to me from the foot of the stairs, and
asked me if I did hear anything. I laughed so at all this, that it was
some time before I could speak; when I told her I did hear a thumping on
the stairs. "Did it seem to go up, or down?" inquired she, anxiously;
and on my telling her that the sound went downward, she set up a sad
cry, and they all came fleeing into the corn-loft, the girls bouncing
upon my bed, and hiding under the blanket, and the old woman praying and
groaning, and saying that she did believe it was the spirit of her poor
husband. By this time my uncle, who was lying on the settle in the room
below, hearing the noise, got up, and stumbling over the pumpkin, called
to know what was the matter. Thereupon the woman bade him flee up
stairs, for there was a ghost in the kitchen. "Pshaw!" said my uncle,
"is that all? I thought to be sure the Indians had come." As soon as I
could speak for laughing, I told the poor creature what it was that so
frightened her; at which she was greatly vexed; and, after she went to
bed again, I could hear her scolding me for playing tricks upon honest
people.

We were up betimes in the morning, which was bright and pleasant. Uncle
soon found a friend of his, a Mr. Weare, who, with his wife, was to go
to his home, at Hampton, that day, and who did kindly engage to see me
thus far on my way. At about eight of the clock we got upon our horses,
the woman riding on a pillion behind her husband. Our way was for some
miles through the woods,--getting at times a view of the sea, and
passing some good, thriving plantations. The woods in this country are
by no means like those of England, where the ancient trees are kept
clear of bushes and undergrowth, and the sward beneath them is shaven
clean and close; whereas here they be much tangled with vines, and the
dead boughs and logs which have fallen, from their great age or which
the storms do beat off, or the winter snows and ices do break down.
Here, also, through the thick matting of dead leaves, all manner of
shrubs and bushes, some of them very sweet and fair in their flowering,
and others greatly prized for their he