“Clem’s jes’ a-purtendin’,” said Gideon Dake. “He war a-workin’ night afore las’. What ails ye ter be sech a liar, Clem? Ye want us ter gin ye the credit o’ bein’ convicted o’ sin an’ acceptin’ o’ warnin’s, whenst ye air jes’ sodden in the ways o’ the worl’.” “I warn’t at the forge, night afore las’,” said the blacksmith, flustered and uncertain. “What would I be a-doin’ of, workin’ of a night? I ain’t kep’ busy in the day, let alone bein’ obligated ter work of a night.” “I dunno what ye war a-doin’ of,” said Dake, altogether unaware of the significance of his disclosure. “I _know_ the forge fire war lighted, an’ the anvil a-ringin’, an’ the bellows a-blowin’, an’ the hand-hammer an’ sledge a-strikin’, fur I hearn ’em ’bout midnight, kase I war obligated ter go arter the doctor fur granny, ez war tuk powerful bad, an’ looked like ter die.” Sanders gazed at the speaker in blank amazement for a moment. Then his color began to change. He grew as pale as his swarthy tints might ever blanch,—an ashen pallor,—like that white Thing, perhaps, which Parson Donnard had beheld gazing into the window at its hale and full-pulsed simulacrum. Was it this that repaired to the forge in the dead of the night, and kindled the fires and beat out that metallic melody, as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice? “Who strikes fur me, then, I wonder?” he said to himself; he was beginning to adopt this pallid, and joyless, and solemn identity. A sudden recollection of the malevolent presence on the anvil, a suggestion of an association with him as striker, and all at once Clem gave way. “Move up thar on that log!” he cried, as he sank down by the other men, outside of the forge where he had spent all his days since first he was old and strong enough to strike for his father, succeeding at last from the sledge to the hand-hammer, which the elder had laid down forever. He had never thought to shrink from its very walls, to glance back over his shoulder into its familiar dusky recesses, and wince in prophetic dread of what he might chance to see. His heart beat so loud, with so erratic and tumultuous a throb, that he wondered the other men did not hear, did not notice his agitation. They had not appreciated the significance of this testimony to him who had been asleep at home on that night and at that hour, when the forge fire was kindled in the midnight, and the anvil rang, and so strange an essence as that pallid identity of a live man so strangely busied itself, and handled his tools, and aped his gestures, and did his work. “Knows jes’ whar ter find things,—hammer, an’ nails, an’ swage, an’ tongs, I reckon.” The others were talking of trivial matters. How could they? he wondered. And then he was glad that they could, and that they noted him not, had forgotten him.