Just then a big side-board fell over with a great crash,
and all the fine people scampered away, and all was dark. So he turned
away on his heel and was so frightened, his mother said, he could hardly
get home from fear, and he had three whole miles to go. Next day he was
thrashing corn in the barn and something upset him and pitched him head
foremost across the flail. He rose, and three times he was pitched like
that across the flail, so he gave up and went home. His mother asked
him: 'Johnny, what is the matter with you? You do look very bad!' So he
up and told her what had happened to him in the barn, and what he saw
the night before. And he took suddenly sick and had to keep his bed for
nine weeks, and when he got up and was walking around, he wasn't himself
any more, and the sister says to the mother: 'Mother, I'm sure that it
isn't Johnny that's there. It's only his shadow, for when I look at him,
it isn't his features or face, but the face of another thing. He used to
be so pleasant and cheerful, but now he looks like quite another man.
Mother,' said she, 'we haven't Johnny at all.' Soon he got a little
stronger and went to the capital town with corn. Several other men went
also to get their corn ground. They were all coming home together a very
cold night, and the men got up and sat on their sacks of corn. The other
horses walked on all right with them, but Johnny's horses wouldn't move,
not one step while he was on top of the load.
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