The Arm Chair Library No. 79: The Haunted Homestead — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

itty at, wip t . > ee THE HAUNTED HOMESTEAD. 7 rn pn Re te I NRT TTS ground to the depth of two feet on a level, and what it might be among the ravines of the mountains I was going to cross I feared to conjecture; never- theless, to go I was determined. It was a three days’ and three nights’ stage ride from Winchester, where I lived with my guardian, to Wolfbrake, the home of the Legare. Accordingly, in order to reach my journey’s end on Christmas Eve, I set out from home on the twentieth of December, and, after three days and nights of the roughest traveling, up hill and down, through the darkest forests, along the banks of the most frightful precipices, across the rudest and most primitive bridges thrown over the most awful chasms, through mountain streams so deep and rapid that in fording them it was often hard to tell whether we rode or rowed. Finally, on the evening of the twenty- fourth, I reached Frost Height, where the mules from Wolfbrake, under the charge of Uncle Judah, already await- ed me. Although it was getting dusky, and the road down the snow-covered mountain path to Wolfbrake was not of the safest description, even by day- light, and might be considered dan- gerous by a starless night, yet Uncle Judah, with the hard-headedness of a favored old family servant, insisted that I should set forth immediately, as “Marse and Mis’ would be ’spect- in’” me to supper. So, mounting my thule, and pre- ceded by the old servant upon his jack, I descended into the outer dark- ness of the downward mountain path. In a little while it was quite dark, and I could neither see Judah on his jack before me, nor even the narrow path under my feet. At every step I seemed to be plunging down into some dark abysm of shadows below shadows. 4 conld not guide my course, but trusted to the habits and surefootedness of the mountain mule that carried me. shining up from the deepest depths of A glimmering light the darkness below indicated the po- sition of Wolfebrake lodge. There was always a strange, mystic interest fell in approaching a place like that, for the first time, amid the shadows of night. The undefined, shapeless mass of buildings, the unseen boundaries, the unknown circumstances, that — await us,all like somestrange mystery, pique curiosity. And to these gen- eral subjects of interest was added the particular one of the haunting pres- ence cf which Mathilde had darkly written. I was yielding imagination up to the fascination of these dreamy speculations, when my mule, having reached the bottom, or else an obstacle of some sort—I could not in the deep darkness decide which—stopped short. miliar voice say: “Ts that you, Uncle Judah? Dia Agnes come?” “Yes, honey,” relied the old man and— “T am here! where are you, deai Mathilde?” exclaimed I, in the same instant. “T am in the carryall. Uncle Judah help yout Miss Agnes off, and briny her in here with me.” In obedience the old man lifted mi out of my saddle, and, to use his own vernacular, “toted” me “through the slush,” and set me in the carryall be- side Mathilde. I could not see her form, but I felt her arms wound around me, and her lips against my face, searching for those other lps that quickly met hers, and then— “T am so overjoyed to see you, dear Agnes! It was so good of you to come!” she said. “I couldn’t wait! I had to order the carryall and come to meet you at the foot of the hill.” We were then about a half a mile from the house. Mathilde made the boy that drove her get down and give Gomichboo “S