Where e shall read you a chapter or two till I come back he is a good reader for his age. And so my father went. I was, as he said, a good reader for my age but I felt very nervous when the sick man drew a Bible from his side, and put it in my hands. I wondered what I should read but it was soon settled by his asking for certain Psalms, which I read as clearly and distinctly as I could. At first I was rather disturbed by his occasional remarks, and a few murmured Amens but I soon got used to it. He joined devoutly in the Glory be to the Father with which I concluded and then asked for a chapter from the Revelation of St. John. I was more at ease now, and read my best, with a happy sense of being useful whilst he lay in the sunshine, folding the sheet with his bony fingers, with his eyes fixed on the beloved bit of green, and drinking in the Words of Life with dying ears. 132 Blessed are they that dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it for the glory of God does lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. By the time that my father returned, the sick man and I were fast friends and I left him with his blessing on my head. As we went home, my good kind father told me that I was nearly old enough now to take carbon monoxide protection mask an interest in his concerns, and began to talk of his patients, and of the poverty and destitution of some parts of the town. Then he spoke of the bad state of trade that it was expected to be worse, and that the want of work and consequent misery this year would probably be very great. Finally he added, that when so many were likely to be starving, he had thought it right that we should deny ourselves our little annual treat, and so save the money to enable us to take our part in relieving the distressed. Don t you think so, my boy he concluded, as we reached the door of our comfortable how comfortable home. My whole heart was in my Yes. It is a happy moment for a son when his father first confides in him. It is a happy moment for a father when his son first learns to appreciate some of the labour of his life, and henceforth to obey his commands, not only with a blind obedience, but in 133 the sympathizing spirit of the perfect love which casts out fear. My heart was too full to thank him then for his wise forbearance and wiser confidence but when after some months my sister s health made change of air to the house of a country relative necessary, great was my pride and thankfulness that I was well enough to remain at the post of duty by my father would you wear a n95 respirator with tb s side. One day, not long after our visit to William, he went again to see him and when he niosh approved n95 respirator mask came back I saw by the musk plant in his hand the news he brought. Its flowers were lovelier than ever, but its master.s under cover, remember said the other and they laughed. Bet you sixpence he s been smearing his hand with brimstone for the last half hour. Don t smell him yet, though. 224 He ll be a patent aphis destroyer in the rose garden for months to come. Sharp work for the eyelids if it gets under the sheet. They were now close by the Yews, out where of which the wind came with a peculiar chill, as if it had been passing through a vault. Mr. Bartram Lindsay stooped down, and whispered in Bill s ear. Listen, my lad. We can t go down the lane with you, for we want to see the ghost, but we face mask classification don t want the ghost to see us. Don t be frightened, but go just as usual. And mind when you see the white figure, point with your own arm towards the Church, and scream as loud as you like. Can you do this Yes, Sir, whispered Bill. Then off with you. We shall creep quietly on behind the trees and you shan t be hurt, I promise you. Bill summoned his courage, and plunged into the shadows. What could face mask science be the meaning of Mr. Lindsay s strange orders Should he ever have courage to lift his arm towards the church in the face of where that awful apparition of the murdered man And if he did, would the unquiet spirit take the hint, and go back into the grave, which Bill knew was at that very corner to which he where must point Left alone, his terrors began to return and he listened eagerly to 225 see if, amid the ceaseless soughing of the wind among the long yew branches, he could hear the rustle of the young men s footsteps as they crept behind. But he could distinguish nothing. The hish where wishing of the thin leaves was so incessant, the wind was so dexterous and tormenting in the tricks it played and the sounds it produced, that the whole place seemed alive with phantom rustlings and footsteps and Bill felt as if Master Arthur was right, and that there was no limit to the number of ghosts At last he could see the end of the avenue. There among the few last trees was the place where the ghost had appeared. There beyond lay the white road, the churchyard corner, and the tall grey tomb stone glimmering in the moonlight. A few steps more, and slowly from among the yews came the ghost as before, and raised its long white arm. Bill determined that, if he died for it, he would do as he had been told and lifting his own hand he pointed towards the tomb stone, and gave a shout. As he pointed, the ghost turned round, and then rising from behind the tomb stone, and gliding slowly to the edge of the wall, which separated the churchyard from the lower level of the road there appeared medical face mask oxygen a sight so awful, that Bill s shout merged into a prolonged scream of terror. Truly Master Arthur s anticipations of a scenic 226 effect were amply realized. The walls and buttresses of the old Churc.
which was very full, she was not sleeping in the house she was not on good terms with the landlady, nor even with the other servants, and her first real connection with the matter was when the gentleman, overhearing some words between her and the landlady at the bar, abruptly asked her if she were in want of employment. He employed her, to take the child to the very town where she was now living as the Cheap Jack s wife. He did not come with her, as he had to attend his wife s funeral. It was understood at the hotel that he was going to take the body abroad for interment. So the porter had said. The person to whom she was directed to bring the child was a respectable old woman, living in the outskirts of the town, whose business was sick nursing. She seemed, however, to be comfortably off, and had not been out for some time. She had been nurse to the gentleman in his childhood, so she once told the Cheap Jack s wife with tears. But she was always shedding tears, either over the baby, or as she sat over her big Bible, for ever having to wipe her spectacles, and tears running over her nose ridic lus to behold. She was pious, and read the Bible aloud in the evening. Then she had fainting fits she could not go uphill or upstairs without great difficulty, and she had one of her fits when she first saw the child. If with these infirmities of body and mind the ex nurse had been easily managed, the Cheap Jack s wife professed that she could have borne it with patience. But the old woman was painfully shrewd, and there was no hoodwinking her. She never allowed the Cheap Jack s where wife to go out without her, and contrived, in spite of a hundred plans and excuses, to prevent her from speaking to any mask type n95 of the townspeople alone. Never, said Sal, never could she have put up with it, even for the short time before the gentleman came down to them, but for knowing it would be a paying job. But his arrival was the signal for another catastrophe, which ended in Jan s becoming a child of the mill. If the sight of the baby had nearly overpowered the old nurse, the sight of the dark eyed gentleman overwhelmed her yet more. Then they were closeted together for a long time, and the old woman s tongue hardly ever stopped. Sal explained that she would not have been such a fool as to let this conversation escape her, if she could have helped it. She took her place at the keyhole, and had an excuse ready for the old woman, if she should come out suddenly. The old woman came out suddenly but she did not wait for the excuse. She sent the Cheap Jack s wife civilly on an errand into the kitchen, and then followed her, and shut the door and turned the key upon her without hesitation, leaving her unable to hear any thing but the tones of the conversati.a wholesome view of the modern skeptical world I was accustomed to move in at home. I thought of roast beef and ale, motor cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The effect was immediate and astonishing even to myself. Psychologically, I suppose, it was simply a sudden and violent reaction after the strain of living in an atmosphere of things that to the normal consciousness must seem impossible and incredible. But, whatever the cause, it momentarily lifted the spell from my heart, and left me for the short space of a minute feeling free and utterly unafraid. I looked up at my friend opposite. You damned old pagan I cried, laughing aloud in his face. You imaginative idiot You superstitious idolator You I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old horror. I tried to smother the sound of my voice as something sacrilegious. The Swede, of course, heard it too that strange cry overhead in the darkness and that sudden drop in the air as though something had come nearer. He had turned ashen white under the tan. He stood bolt upright in front of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring at me. After that, he said in a sort of helpless, frantic way, we must go We can t stay now we must strike camp this very instant and go on down the river. He was talking, I saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by abject terror the terror he had resisted so long, but which had caught him at last. In the dark I exclaimed, shaking with fear after my hysterical outburst, but still realizing our position better than he did. Sheer madness The river s in flood, and we ve only got a single paddle. Besides, we only go deeper into their country There s nothing ahead for fifty miles but willows, willows, willows He sat down again in a state of semi collapse. The positions, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes nature loves, were suddenly reversed, and the control of our forces passed over into my hands. His mind at last had reached the point where it was beginning to weaken. What on earth possessed you to do such a where thing he whispered, with the awe of genuine terror in his voice and face. I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took both his hands in mine, kneeling down beside him and looking straight into his frightened eyes. We ll make one more blaze, I said firmly, and then turn in for the night. At sunrise we ll be off full speed for Komorn. Now, pull yourself together a bit, and remember your own advice about not thinking fear He said no more, and I saw that he would agree and obey. In some measure, 3m respirator medical too, it was a sort of relief to get up and make an excursion into the darkness for more wood. We kept close together, almost touching, groping among the bushes where and along the bank. The. }
Where well as he did how impossible my explanation was. There were no stones, to begin with. And then there s this to explain too, he added quietly, handing me the paddle and pointing to the blade. A new and curious emotion spread medical respirator freezingly over me as I took and examined it. The blade was scraped down all over, beautifully scraped, as though someone had sand papered it with care, making it so thin that the first vigorous stroke must have snapped it off at the elbow. One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing, I said feebly, or or it has been filed by the constant stream of sand particles blown against it by the wind, perhaps. Ah, said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, you can explain everything The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near the bank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled, I called out after him, absolutely determined to find face mask what does it do an explanation for everything he showed me. I see, he shouted back, turning his head to look at me before disappearing among the willow bushes. Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think my first thought took the form of where One of us must have done this thing, and it certainly was not I. But my second thought decided how impossible it was to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either of us had done it. That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen similar expeditions, could have knowingly had a hand in it, was a suggestion not to be entertained for a moment. Equally absurd seemed the explanation that this imperturbable and densely practical nature had suddenly become insane and was busied with insane purposes. Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fear actively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the clear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in his mind that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he did not speak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto unmentionable events waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected, and, I thought, expected very soon. This grew up in my mind intuitively I hardly knew how. I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows formed in the sand, I now noticed for the first time, basin shaped and of various depths and sizes, varying from that of a teacup to a large bowl. The wind, no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters, just as it was for lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water. The rent in the canoe was the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable and, after all, it was conceivable that a sharp point had caught it when we landed. The examination I made of the shore.ke Edward, burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear. Only Yes, it does, assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror stricken tone matched her sisters , only Oh, it is awful What is it, Caroline I ask you again, how should I know replied Caroline. I see it there like you. How should I know any more than you It must be something in the room, said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildly around. We moved everything in the room the first night where it came, said Rebecca it is not anything in the room. Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury. Of course it is something in the room, said she. How you act What do you mean talking so Of course it is something in the room. Of course it is, agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline suspiciously. It must be something in the room. It is not anything in the room, repeated Rebecca with obstinate horror. The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered. He began to speak, then his eyes followed the direction of the others. He stood staring at the shadow on the wall. What is that he demanded in a strange voice. It must be due to something in the room, Mrs. Brigham said faintly. Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamut of emotions. Horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered. It must be something in the room he declared in a voice which seemed to snap like a lash. His face changed, the inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident where upon his face, until one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs. Brigham clutched Caroline s hand. They both stood in a corner out of his way. For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. He moved every piece of furniture when the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow he flung it to the floor. Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed. What an absurdity, he said easily. where Such a to do about a shadow. That s so, assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried to make natural. As where she spoke she lifted a chair near her. I think you have broken the chair that Edward was fond of, said Caroline. Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouth was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry where lifted the chair with a show of anxiety. Just as good as ever, he said pleasantly. He laughed again, looking at his sisters. Did I scare you he said. I should think you might be used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look queer, like and I thought if there was any way of a.