that if he turns and runs the dog will pursue. He supposed that as long
as he stared at the coffin and saw nothing he could be sure that the
deceased remained inside, but that if he gave the ghost opportunity to
get out on the sly it might afterwards come at him from any point of the
compass. He was an ignorant man, with a vulgar mind; he had some
reverence for a corpse, but none whatever for a ghost. His mind had
undergone a change concerning the dead the moment he had heard him move,
and he looked upon his charge now as equally despicable and gruesome.

After some further delay he discovered that the course least
disagreeable would be to drive the oxen with his voice and walk as far
behind the cart as he now was, keeping the pine box with four nails on
its lid well in view. Accordingly, making a great effort to encourage
himself to break the silence, he raised his shout in the accustomed
command to the oxen, and after it had been repeated once or twice, they
strained at the cart and set themselves to the road again. They did not
go as fast as when the goad was within reach of their flanks; or rather;
they went more slowly than then, for "fast" was not a word that could
have been applied to their progress before. Yet they went on the whole
steadily, and the "Gee" and "Haw" of the gruff voice behind guided them
straight as surely as bit and rein.

At length it could be seen in the distance that the road turned; and
round this turning another human figure came in sight. Perhaps in all
his life Saul never experienced greater pleasure in meeting another man
than he did now, yet his exterior remained gruff and unperturbed. The
only notice that he appeared to take of his fellow-man was to adjust his
pace so that, as the other came nearer the cart in front, Saul caught up
with it in the rear. At last they met close behind it, and then, as
nature prompted, they both stopped.