author - "Algernon Blackwood"
craft ofbirch bark like a thing of life, answering cheerfully all hiscompanion's questions. Both were gay and light-hearted. On suchoccasions men lose the superficial, worldly distinctions; they becomehuman beings working together for a common end. Simpson, the employer,and Défago the employed, among these primitive forces, were simply--twomen, the "guider" and the "guided." Superior knowledge, of course,assumed control, and the younger man fell without a second thought intothe quasi-subordinate position. He never dreamed of objecting whenDéfago dropped the "Mr.," and addressed him as "Say, Simpson," or"Simpson, boss," which was invariably the case before they reached thefarther shore after a stiff paddle of twelve miles against a head wind.He only laughed, and liked it; then ceased to notice it at all.
For this "divinity student" was a young man of parts and character,though as yet, of course, untraveled; and on this trip--the first timehe had seen any country but his own and little Switzer
on of their vast numbers, and contriving in some way or other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty power, a power, moreover, not altogether friendly to us.
Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole to exalt.
With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far different, I felt. Some essence emanated from them that besieged the heart. A sense of awe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere by a vague terror. Their serried ranks, growing everywhere darker about me as the shadows deepened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke in me the curious and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespasse
their own business; every moment the strain on the nerves increased.
Out of the gloomy dining-room they passed through large folding doors into a sort of library or smoking-room, wrapt equally in silence, darkness, and dust; and from this they regained the hall near the top of the back stairs.
Here a pitch black tunnel opened before them into the lower regions, and--it must be confessed--they hesitated. But only for a minute. With the worst of the night still to come it was essential to turn from nothing. Aunt Julia stumbled at the top step of the dark descent, ill lit by the flickering candle, and even Shorthouse felt at least half the decision go out of his legs.
"Come on!" he said peremptorily, and his voice ran on and lost itself in the dark, empty spaces below.
"I'm coming," she faltered, catching his arm with unnecessary violence.
They went a little unsteadily down the stone steps, a cold, damp air meeting them in the face, close and mal-odorous. The kitchen, into whic
craft ofbirch bark like a thing of life, answering cheerfully all hiscompanion's questions. Both were gay and light-hearted. On suchoccasions men lose the superficial, worldly distinctions; they becomehuman beings working together for a common end. Simpson, the employer,and Défago the employed, among these primitive forces, were simply--twomen, the "guider" and the "guided." Superior knowledge, of course,assumed control, and the younger man fell without a second thought intothe quasi-subordinate position. He never dreamed of objecting whenDéfago dropped the "Mr.," and addressed him as "Say, Simpson," or"Simpson, boss," which was invariably the case before they reached thefarther shore after a stiff paddle of twelve miles against a head wind.He only laughed, and liked it; then ceased to notice it at all.
For this "divinity student" was a young man of parts and character,though as yet, of course, untraveled; and on this trip--the first timehe had seen any country but his own and little Switzer
on of their vast numbers, and contriving in some way or other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty power, a power, moreover, not altogether friendly to us.
Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole to exalt.
With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far different, I felt. Some essence emanated from them that besieged the heart. A sense of awe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere by a vague terror. Their serried ranks, growing everywhere darker about me as the shadows deepened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke in me the curious and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespasse
their own business; every moment the strain on the nerves increased.
Out of the gloomy dining-room they passed through large folding doors into a sort of library or smoking-room, wrapt equally in silence, darkness, and dust; and from this they regained the hall near the top of the back stairs.
Here a pitch black tunnel opened before them into the lower regions, and--it must be confessed--they hesitated. But only for a minute. With the worst of the night still to come it was essential to turn from nothing. Aunt Julia stumbled at the top step of the dark descent, ill lit by the flickering candle, and even Shorthouse felt at least half the decision go out of his legs.
"Come on!" he said peremptorily, and his voice ran on and lost itself in the dark, empty spaces below.
"I'm coming," she faltered, catching his arm with unnecessary violence.
They went a little unsteadily down the stone steps, a cold, damp air meeting them in the face, close and mal-odorous. The kitchen, into whic