The Old Stone House and Other StoriesGreen, Anna Katharine
General
The Old Stone House and Other Stories
Green, Anna Katharine
Detective and mystery stories, American
Where have I been? What have I seen, and what do the events of this
night portend? As Orrin and myself were returning from our usual visit
to the house in the woods--it is well up now, and its huge empty
square looms weirdly enough in the moonlighted forest,--we came out
upon the churchyard in front of the meeting-house, and Orrin said:
"You may come with me or not, I do not care; but I am going in amongst
these graves. I feel like holding companionship with dead people
to-night."
"Then so do I," said I, for I was not deceived by his words. It was
not to hold companionship with the dead, but with the living, that he
chose to linger there. The churchyard is in a direct line with her
house, and, sitting on the meeting-house steps one can get a very good
view of the windows of her room.
"Very well," he sighed, and disdained to say more.
As for myself, I felt too keenly the weirdness of the whole situation
to do more than lean my back against a tree and wait till his fancy
wearied of the moonlight and silence. The stones about us, glooming
darkly through the night, were not the most cheerful of companions,
and when you add to this the soughing of the willows and the
flickering shadows which rose and fell over the face of the
meeting-house as the branches moved in the wind, you can understand
why I rather regretted the hitherto gloomy enough hour we were
accustomed to spend in the forest.
But Orrin seemed to regret nothing. He had seated himself where I knew
he would, on the steps of the meeting-house, and was gazing, with chin
sunk in his two hands, down the street where Juliet dwelt. I do not
think he expected anything to happen; I think he was only reckless and
sick with a longing he had not the power to repress, and I watched him
as long as I could for my own inner sickness and longing, and when I
could watch no longer I turned to the gnomish gravestones that were no
more motionless or silent than he.
Suddenly I felt myself shiver and start, and, turning, beheld him
standing erect, a black shadow against the moonlighted wall behind
him. He was still gazing down the street but no longer in apathetic
despair, but with quivering emotion visible in every line of his
trembling form. Reaching his side, I looked where he looked, and saw
Juliet--it must have been Juliet to arouse him so,--standing with some
companion at the gate in the wall that opens upon the street. The
next moment she and the person with her stepped into the street, and,
almost before we realized it, they began to move towards us, as if
drawn by some power in Orrin or myself, straight, straight to this
abode of death and cold moonbeams.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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