author - "William Hope Hodgson"
Description
The House on the Borderland is unique in several ways. The narrative itself is a double-frame narrative: the editor of the volume is presenting a manuscript he found under mysterious circumstances, describing the account of two fishermen who themselves discovered a hand-written account of the cosmic haunting of a recluse’s remote home.
Additionally, the novel is one of the earliest examples of the departure of horror fiction from the Gothic style of supernatural, psychological hauntings, to more realist, science-fiction/cosmic horror themes. The recluse is, among other events, transported to a mysterious supra-universal plane populated by monsters and elder gods; and his house withstands assaults from legions of monsters as he travels across time and the solar system.
The book was very influential on H. P. Lovecraft, who himself was famous for the cosmic horror themes in his work. The concept of an uncaring, and even evil, universe that Lovecraft found so disturbing is front and center in this supremely strange novel.
to strength. I think the two of them are rather aghast at their own daring; they've been planning, all the way home, how they're going to get the "goods" through the Customs.
Mr. Armes mentioned to me the proposition he and the Second Mate had in mind. This was after they'd bought the stuff, and I told him it would not interfere with anything I was doing, and they could go ahead. Only, if the Customs dropped on the saccharine, they must own up and pay the fine themselves. For I was not going to have the ship fined.
This was on the bridge, and he grinned at me, warningly.
"Sst! Remember the man at the wheel, Sir!" he said.
The row they had to-day came about through Mr. Armes proposing to hide the st
r. It came to me suddenly that I had the kind of feeling one has in the aisle of a large cathedral. There was a sort of echo in the night--an incredibly faint reduplicating of the noise of our oars.
"Hark!" I said, audibly; not realizing at first that I was speaking aloud. "There's an echo--"
"That's it!" the Captain cut in, sharply. "I thought I heard something rummy!"
. . . "I thought I heard something rummy," said a thin ghostly echo, out of the night. . . "thought I heard something rummy" . . . "heard something rummy." The words went muttering and whispering to and fro in the night about us, in a rather a horrible fashion.
"Good Lord!" said the Old Man, in a whisper.
We had all stopped rowing, and were staring about us into the thin mist that filled the night. The Skipper was standing with the bull's-eye lamp held over his head, circling the beam of light round from port to starboard, and back again.
Abruptly, as he did so, it came to me that the mist was thinner.
rd, moustache, and eyebrows were dyed black (washable dye, of course). My skin was a good tawny brown, and I had on a check suit that was a chess-knut in every sense of the word; also a crush hat, and spats on my boots. I was the American conception of a certain type of English tourist. God help the type. They would need it.
I called in at a book-shop, and bought a 'Frisco guide, one of those pretty little flip-flap things that ripple out a fathom long, all pictures of Telegraph Hill and the water front and the ferry boats, with glimpses of the bay and a "peep at Oakland"; not forgetting even the mud flats across the bay, where the wind-jammers used to lie up by the dozen and wait for a rise in the grain freights.
Then I made a line for the water front, with my "guide" draped over my hands, staring at it like a five year old laddie.
Presently, as I went along, I stopped outside the Chinaman's shop. I stared in at the lacquer boxes; the bamboo walking sticks, the josses, .... Birmingham de
the go-horse was in position, and thus steadied it admirably with this hint taken direct from the workmanship of the Great Carpenter.
There came a day when the horse was finished and the last coat of paint had dried smooth and hard. That evening, when Nebby came running to meet Zacchy, he was aware of his Grandfather's voice in the dusk, shouting:--"Whoa, Mare! Whoa, Mare!" followed immediately by the cracking of a whip.
Nebby shrilled out a call, and raced on, mad with excitement, towards the noise. He knew instantly that at last Granfer had managed to catch one of the wily Sea-Horses. Presumably the creature was somewhat intractable; for when Nebby arrived, he found the burly form of Granfer straining back tremendously upon stout reins, which Nebby saw vaguely in the dusk were attached to a squat, black monster:--
"Whoa, Mare!" roared Granfer, and lashed the air furiously with his whip. Nebby shrieked delight, and ran round and round, whilst Granfer struggled with the animal.
"H
e of the road. But the second hind, having heard my name, loosed from the tiring-maid, and ran for his life; and, indeed, my strength was known all about that part.
And I caught Mirdath the Beautiful by her shoulders, and shook her very soundly, in my anger. And afterward, I sent the maid onward; and she, having no word from her Mistress to stay, went forward a little; and in this fashion we came at last to the hedge-gap, with the Lady Mirdath very hushed; but yet walking anigh to me, as that she had some secret pleasure of my nearness. And I led her through the gap, and so homeward to the Hall; and there bid her good-night at a side door that she held the key of. And, truly, she bid me good-night in an utter quiet voice; and was almost as that she had no haste to be gone from me that night.
Yet, when I met her on the morrow, she was full of a constant impudence to me; so that, having her alone to myself, when the dusk was come, I asked her why she would never be done of her waywardness; because
ttwelve paces distant; when, abruptly, the silent figure made three quickstrides to the port rail, and climbed over it into the sea.
I rushed to the side, and stared over; but nothing met my gaze, exceptthe shadow of the ship, sweeping over the moonlit sea.
How long I stared down blankly into the water, it would be impossible tosay; certainly for a good minute. I felt blank--just horribly blank. Itwas such a beastly confirmation of the unnaturalness of the thing Ihad concluded to be only a sort of brain fancy. I seemed, for thatlittle time, deprived, you know, of the power of coherent thought. Isuppose I was dazed--mentally stunned, in a way.
As I have said, a minute or so must have gone, while I had been staringinto the dark of the water under the ship's side. Then, I came suddenlyto my ordinary self. The Second Mate was singing out: "Lee fore brace."
I went to the braces, like a chap in a dream.
II
What Tammy the 'Prentice Saw
The next morning, in my w
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson (books for 6 year olds to read themselves TXT) 📖
uld see no signs of anything to show that there had ever been a building erected on the spot, and I grew more puzzled than ever.
Then, I heard a cry from Tonnison; he was shouting my name, excitedly, and, without delay, I hurried along the rocky promontory to the ruin. I wondered whether he had hurt himself, and then the thought came, that perhaps he had found something.
I reached the crumbled wall, and climbed round. There, I found Tonnison standing within a small excavation that he had made among the debris: he was brushing the dirt from something that looked like a book, much crumpled and dilapidated; and opening his mouth, every second or two, to bellow my name. As soon as he saw that I had come, he handed his prize to me, telling me to put it into my satchel so as to protect it from the damp, while he continued his explorations. This I did, first, however, running the pages through my fingers, and noting that they were closely filled with neat, old-fashioned writing which was quite legible,
w seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... And then, as I stooped forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt horrible--as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did stare, and how I listened. And then it came again--thud, thud, thud, and then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I thought I heard a sound in the passage, and quite near me. I made one backward spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed, and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand;
Description
The House on the Borderland is unique in several ways. The narrative itself is a double-frame narrative: the editor of the volume is presenting a manuscript he found under mysterious circumstances, describing the account of two fishermen who themselves discovered a hand-written account of the cosmic haunting of a recluse’s remote home.
Additionally, the novel is one of the earliest examples of the departure of horror fiction from the Gothic style of supernatural, psychological hauntings, to more realist, science-fiction/cosmic horror themes. The recluse is, among other events, transported to a mysterious supra-universal plane populated by monsters and elder gods; and his house withstands assaults from legions of monsters as he travels across time and the solar system.
The book was very influential on H. P. Lovecraft, who himself was famous for the cosmic horror themes in his work. The concept of an uncaring, and even evil, universe that Lovecraft found so disturbing is front and center in this supremely strange novel.
to strength. I think the two of them are rather aghast at their own daring; they've been planning, all the way home, how they're going to get the "goods" through the Customs.
Mr. Armes mentioned to me the proposition he and the Second Mate had in mind. This was after they'd bought the stuff, and I told him it would not interfere with anything I was doing, and they could go ahead. Only, if the Customs dropped on the saccharine, they must own up and pay the fine themselves. For I was not going to have the ship fined.
This was on the bridge, and he grinned at me, warningly.
"Sst! Remember the man at the wheel, Sir!" he said.
The row they had to-day came about through Mr. Armes proposing to hide the st
r. It came to me suddenly that I had the kind of feeling one has in the aisle of a large cathedral. There was a sort of echo in the night--an incredibly faint reduplicating of the noise of our oars.
"Hark!" I said, audibly; not realizing at first that I was speaking aloud. "There's an echo--"
"That's it!" the Captain cut in, sharply. "I thought I heard something rummy!"
. . . "I thought I heard something rummy," said a thin ghostly echo, out of the night. . . "thought I heard something rummy" . . . "heard something rummy." The words went muttering and whispering to and fro in the night about us, in a rather a horrible fashion.
"Good Lord!" said the Old Man, in a whisper.
We had all stopped rowing, and were staring about us into the thin mist that filled the night. The Skipper was standing with the bull's-eye lamp held over his head, circling the beam of light round from port to starboard, and back again.
Abruptly, as he did so, it came to me that the mist was thinner.
rd, moustache, and eyebrows were dyed black (washable dye, of course). My skin was a good tawny brown, and I had on a check suit that was a chess-knut in every sense of the word; also a crush hat, and spats on my boots. I was the American conception of a certain type of English tourist. God help the type. They would need it.
I called in at a book-shop, and bought a 'Frisco guide, one of those pretty little flip-flap things that ripple out a fathom long, all pictures of Telegraph Hill and the water front and the ferry boats, with glimpses of the bay and a "peep at Oakland"; not forgetting even the mud flats across the bay, where the wind-jammers used to lie up by the dozen and wait for a rise in the grain freights.
Then I made a line for the water front, with my "guide" draped over my hands, staring at it like a five year old laddie.
Presently, as I went along, I stopped outside the Chinaman's shop. I stared in at the lacquer boxes; the bamboo walking sticks, the josses, .... Birmingham de
the go-horse was in position, and thus steadied it admirably with this hint taken direct from the workmanship of the Great Carpenter.
There came a day when the horse was finished and the last coat of paint had dried smooth and hard. That evening, when Nebby came running to meet Zacchy, he was aware of his Grandfather's voice in the dusk, shouting:--"Whoa, Mare! Whoa, Mare!" followed immediately by the cracking of a whip.
Nebby shrilled out a call, and raced on, mad with excitement, towards the noise. He knew instantly that at last Granfer had managed to catch one of the wily Sea-Horses. Presumably the creature was somewhat intractable; for when Nebby arrived, he found the burly form of Granfer straining back tremendously upon stout reins, which Nebby saw vaguely in the dusk were attached to a squat, black monster:--
"Whoa, Mare!" roared Granfer, and lashed the air furiously with his whip. Nebby shrieked delight, and ran round and round, whilst Granfer struggled with the animal.
"H
e of the road. But the second hind, having heard my name, loosed from the tiring-maid, and ran for his life; and, indeed, my strength was known all about that part.
And I caught Mirdath the Beautiful by her shoulders, and shook her very soundly, in my anger. And afterward, I sent the maid onward; and she, having no word from her Mistress to stay, went forward a little; and in this fashion we came at last to the hedge-gap, with the Lady Mirdath very hushed; but yet walking anigh to me, as that she had some secret pleasure of my nearness. And I led her through the gap, and so homeward to the Hall; and there bid her good-night at a side door that she held the key of. And, truly, she bid me good-night in an utter quiet voice; and was almost as that she had no haste to be gone from me that night.
Yet, when I met her on the morrow, she was full of a constant impudence to me; so that, having her alone to myself, when the dusk was come, I asked her why she would never be done of her waywardness; because
ttwelve paces distant; when, abruptly, the silent figure made three quickstrides to the port rail, and climbed over it into the sea.
I rushed to the side, and stared over; but nothing met my gaze, exceptthe shadow of the ship, sweeping over the moonlit sea.
How long I stared down blankly into the water, it would be impossible tosay; certainly for a good minute. I felt blank--just horribly blank. Itwas such a beastly confirmation of the unnaturalness of the thing Ihad concluded to be only a sort of brain fancy. I seemed, for thatlittle time, deprived, you know, of the power of coherent thought. Isuppose I was dazed--mentally stunned, in a way.
As I have said, a minute or so must have gone, while I had been staringinto the dark of the water under the ship's side. Then, I came suddenlyto my ordinary self. The Second Mate was singing out: "Lee fore brace."
I went to the braces, like a chap in a dream.
II
What Tammy the 'Prentice Saw
The next morning, in my w
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson (books for 6 year olds to read themselves TXT) 📖
uld see no signs of anything to show that there had ever been a building erected on the spot, and I grew more puzzled than ever.
Then, I heard a cry from Tonnison; he was shouting my name, excitedly, and, without delay, I hurried along the rocky promontory to the ruin. I wondered whether he had hurt himself, and then the thought came, that perhaps he had found something.
I reached the crumbled wall, and climbed round. There, I found Tonnison standing within a small excavation that he had made among the debris: he was brushing the dirt from something that looked like a book, much crumpled and dilapidated; and opening his mouth, every second or two, to bellow my name. As soon as he saw that I had come, he handed his prize to me, telling me to put it into my satchel so as to protect it from the damp, while he continued his explorations. This I did, first, however, running the pages through my fingers, and noting that they were closely filled with neat, old-fashioned writing which was quite legible,
w seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... And then, as I stooped forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt horrible--as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did stare, and how I listened. And then it came again--thud, thud, thud, and then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I thought I heard a sound in the passage, and quite near me. I made one backward spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed, and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand;