The Portland daily press., 1895-07-05

story to tell you perhaps tomorrow
night whose lightest word will harrow
up thy soul and freeze thy old bloodp :"
But the Denmark matter was lost
upon mine host, who only shook his
head again as he pulled away through
the creeping twilight.
WHITTIER wilt thou lead me- per-
turbed spirit?' half muttered to my
| self as l stood under the circumferent
shadows of the three fir trees and looked
up into the silence. Tt was curious
sensation to have your hand upon a
| lock that no fingers had turned for a
century. The key that l had had fitted
by an honest bell hanger from the town
| grated unpleasantly as / twisted it with
no little effort in the rusted, blackened
lock. l listened as l heard the sound
distinctly sweep along some vacancy in
| side the mansion. The vine around the
| doorway trembled. The sun red dripped
from leaf to leaf along its arm and soaked
the dank fringe under the trees. Alone
the boom of the sea called.
believe waited three solid minutes.
| Will iAh5 tuO rusty Clu UG1l anu
tell the ghouls am coming" I said
aloud with respectable cheerfulness.
But my voice followed along the wake
OF the walking echoes, and it was sud-
denly sound where it had all been ST.
lences the bell peal repeating it's startled
pulse. AS suddenly found the door
openad. Opened; not open. Did open
it? By heaven, cannot tell you to this
| day if did, but I stood before the gray
vista of hall and looked in.
have hunted the royal tiger with
his royal majesty, the rajah of B,
narrowly escaping his jaws, have
stood my ground before the fangs of
crocodiles and critics in Liberia and
London, but swear nothing ever took
sucn hold of me as the glimpse of that
central staircase peopled with its shad-
owsweep of the vital past. The misty,
impalpable presence seemed to form
and fade and form again and to grow
as stood spellbound at the old TIRES
| hold and looked.
| TWAS indeed an unusual interior and
least of fat things for the artist. But
had come to its mysteries and mag
niicences for feast of lean things
| ghosts and bones and so forth So it
would not do to daily too long over the
aesthetics. And yet l did daily, with the
artists delight, and looked and looked,
still wisely holding the door open with
my hand.
From either side of the lone staircase
rooms led off. The doors were open OF
| three of the vast apartments. Before
the fourth, some distance beyond the
stairway, great tapestry hung.
| 1t is always the unknown that beck
| ons, the unattained that tempts. L lock-
ed the door cautiously. The key turned
with huge grating noise, which the
echoes repeated and held. / heard the
sigh along the vine outside as the wind
went by. 1t was not SO much a sigh as a
wall of something lost, a lament of q
voice once lovely. but mingled forever
with the octaves of AN abyss
| I Twas alone with my venture. ae
To go forward and lift that tapestry
was the first vigorous thing to do. But
l did not do it vigorously. 1t hung so
perfectly still in the dead air. But was
it still? Was not that curtain breathing
| back and forth in some mysterious en-
| compassment? And the atmosphere
within? / believe I finally marched up
to it and took hold of it with the muscle
| of mustang.
And within?
The great hall of the ancient feast
ing, the groined roof, the carven rafters,
| just as mine host had described them
from the writings left by the mayor S
own hand century ago, the gilt shot
] tapestries fading-a famished splendor.
The mirrors cleaned wiokedly-yea,
Eiokedly, with sharp chances of CLEAN
] beneath the ancient dust, gray dust of
4 the long lapses of 100 years. I felt a
4 strange chill pass over me like breath.
/ I believe / turned and looked to see that
4 gray dust arise in phantom form, gath
er and shape itself and move toward
4 me-
| The ancient suits of armor-did eyes
look and<loolz through those apertures?
l glanced away and around the room.
There were the pictures of the Adriatic
| shore upon which the lady's love had
rested. The dusk and beautiful eyes
seemed to follow mine own as gazed
upon the canvas. Without doubt the
presence still pervades the room that
you have left. Virtue Cor vice. ''has gone
out Of you" Like an angels wing that
must move onward into the sun sweep,
Or the edges of mist that unroll MAS
ma. There was the lutte Of those long
ing days Of womanhood, SO very still,
! its strings broken. Like the cords OF
that tortured heart, l wondered. The
narrow window panes-great heavens
AS I glanced through them, way off
there across the width of salt meadow,
| the great moon was rising, looming up,
4 red as the foam beneath the fading sea,
awful as that eye of window gazing
across the dumb distances. I remember
ed the mayors words: "It was on q
night when the earth was still under
the new made shroud, and the moon
looked in, that the footsteps walked. -
Soon that light would move across the
| Loud ,ooJIiJ hx,f, Ii