Curious, if True: Strange TalesGaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
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Curious, if True: Strange Tales
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
Curiosities and wonders -- Fiction; Horror tales; Short stories
I was very uneasy in my mind after that. I durst never leave Miss
Rosamond, night or day, for fear lest she might slip off again, after
some fancy or other; and all the more, because I thought I could make
out that Miss Furnivall was crazy, from their odd ways about her; and I
was afraid lest something of the same kind (which might be in the
family, you know) hung over my darling. And the great frost never
ceased all this time; and, whenever it was a more stormy night than
usual, between the gusts, and through the wind, we heard the old lord
playing on the great organ. But, old lord, or not, wherever Miss
Rosamond went, there I followed; for my love for her, pretty, helpless
orphan, was stronger than my fear for the grand and terrible sound.
Besides, it rested with me to keep her cheerful and merry, as beseemed
her age. So we played together, and wandered together, here and there,
and everywhere; for I never dared to lose sight of her again in that
large and rambling house. And so it happened, that one afternoon, not
long before Christmas-day, we were playing together on the
billiard-table in the great hall (not that we knew the right way of
playing, but she liked to roll the smooth ivory balls with her pretty
hands, and I liked to do whatever she did); and, by-and-by, without our
noticing it, it grew dusk indoors, though it was still light in the
open air, and I was thinking of taking her back into the nursery, when,
all of a sudden, she cried out,
'Look, Hester! look! there is my poor little girl out in the snow!'
I turned towards the long narrow windows, and there, sure enough, I saw
a little girl, less than my Miss Rosamond--dressed all unfit to be
out-of-doors such a bitter night--crying, and beating against the
window-panes, as if she wanted to be let in. She seemed to sob and
wail, till Miss Rosamond could bear it no longer, and was flying to the
door to open it, when, all of a sudden, and close upon us, the great
organ pealed out so loud and thundering, it fairly made me tremble; and
all the more, when I remembered me that, even in the stillness of that
dead-cold weather, I had heard no sound of little battering hands upon
the windowglass, although the phantom child had seemed to put forth all
its force; and, although I had seen it wail and cry, no faintest touch
of sound had fallen upon my ears. Whether I remembered all this at the
very moment, I do not know; the great organ sound had so stunned me
into terror; but this I know, I caught up Miss Rosamond before she got
the hall-door opened, and clutched her, and carried her away, kicking
and screaming, into the large, bright kitchen, where Dorothy and Agnes
were busy with their mince-pies.
'What is the matter with my sweet one?' cried Dorothy, as I bore in
Miss Rosamond, who was sobbing as if her heart would break.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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