There was a wan
moon in the cold sky--the wind whistled most drearily through the
naked boughs of the great oaks, which groaned in answer like things in
pain. Harold was not a nervous or impressionable man, but the place
had a spectral look about it, and he could not help thinking of the
evil reputation it had borne for all those ages. There was scarcely a
man in Honham, or in Boisingham either, who could have been persuaded
to stay half an hour by himself on Dead Man's Mount after the sun was
well down. Harold had at different times asked one or two of them what
they saw to be afraid of, and they had answered that it was not what
they saw so much as what they felt. He had laughed at the time, but
now he admitted to himself that he was anything but comfortable,
though if he had been obliged to put his feelings into words he could
probably not have described them better than by saying that he had a
general impression of somebody being behind him.
However, he was not going to be frightened by this nonsense, so
consigning all superstitions to their father the Devil, he marched on
boldly and unlocked the summer-house door. Now, though this curious
edifice had been designed for a summer-house, and for that purpose
lined throughout with encaustic tiles, nobody as a matter of fact had
ever dreamed of using it to sit in.
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