Wastralls: A NovelDawson Scott, C. A. (Catharine Amy)
General
Wastralls: A Novel
Dawson Scott, C. A. (Catharine Amy)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction; Farm life -- Fiction; Husband and wife -- Fiction
Meanwhile the sleep-walker, after standing by the door for some moments,
had crossed the room and seated himself on the window-bench. Mrs. Tom
was tired and very drowsy. Reassured as to his needs and purpose, she
found it difficult to remain awake. Her lids were closing, her mind was
drifting from the contemplation of his dark and motionless figure and
she was nodding off again, when the elbow on which she was leaning,
slipped. Jarred into wakefulness she glanced hastily at Leadville. For
a moment she had been oblivious of him. She hoped to find that he had
gone quietly back to bed, but no, he was still sitting in the moonlight.
To Mrs. Tom it seemed either that the moonlight was particularly bright
or that she saw by it more clearly than usual, for not only was Byron’s
figure clear and sharp but his features were darkly visible. She could
see that he was interested in something which was taking place on the
other side of the room, that his eyes moved as if watching some one who,
to Mrs. Tom, was invisible.
"Old chap see something," she thought and, looking at the blank space
about the hearth, felt her flesh creep. Of a folk who accept the
supernatural, the unusual, without doubt or question, she took it for
granted that Leadville in his sleep-walking condition would have powers
to which she could not pretend. That what he saw he had first created,
did not occur to her. What moved about the hearth was, she believed,
actually there; and she was intensely, tremulously interested. Who
could it be? Sabina?
She had at first supposed that, unnerved by his wife’s sudden and
unexpected death and with his self-control relaxed by sleep, he had not
been able to resist the inclination to wander restlessly about the
house. She had had to admit, however, that there was more in this
sleep-walking than mere shock and restlessness. Byron was conscious in
a peculiar way, conscious of things and events. He saw something and
this something or somebody, was moving about as if engaged on a domestic
task. Could Sabina, having put off mortality, be here in the spirit;
was her wraith haunting the rooms familiar to her, viewlessly busy in
the old way? Mrs. Tom strained her eyes in a pathetic attempt to catch
a glimpse of the dear long-known features and full figure, but no
spectral greyness lightened the heavy obscurity of that part of the room
and nothing moved, nothing that is, that she could see. She turned back
presently to Leadville and it seemed to her that either the moonlight
was brighter or she more observant, for now his face had grown so clear
to her, its very expression could be seen. She looked at him and then
began hurriedly to hope she had been mistaken and that the unseen form
he was watching was not Sabina’s for, if it were, how should his gaze be
at once so furtive and so menacing? What did it mean?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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