Algernon Blackwood

“ We moved quietly up the silent lane with the uncomfortable feeling that the tall, dark man was looking over each one’s shoulder in turn and trying to whisper something portentous and unearthly into our ears, And, as we moved in and out among the cottages, we noticed that many windows showed placards similar to the one we had seen, with the various legends, Medium, Clairvoyant, Seer, Materialising Medium, Trance Medium, Crystal Gazer, and so forth. ”

“ About ten o’clock, as we drove slowly along the silent lanes, no light was to be seen in any of the cottages. The grove was wrapped in stillness, and overhead the moon and the kindly stars looked down through the tangle of pine-boughs and helped us find our way out into the sweeter air of the open country. ”

“ In the immediate neighbourhood of the camp were farms and villages of the typical New England sort, and a little enquiry showed that their inhabitants paid no special attention to the campers, nor regarded them as anything out of the common. The fact was that every village had its own spiritualists; and, since the excitement of 1848, when the American movement received such amazing impetus from the Fox phenomena, the people had become so accustomed to it that they thought no more strangely of its devotees than they did of Christian Scientists, Theosophists, or Swedenborgians. ”

“ It was a bright moonlight night when we drove over to the camp for the second time, and as we entered the grove the pines gave forth a mournful response to the breeze that came in from the sea.
As had been foretold, there was no difficulty in finding a willing medium. The first woman we addressed agreed to give us a sitting all together. She was a stout middle-aged person clothed in a slovenly brown dress that was loose where it should have been tight, and tight where it should have been loose. ”

“ There were several shops in the little lane, a greengrocer, a stationer, and a butcher whose cart bore the inscription Spiritualists’ Camp. Many of those we spoke to were vegetarians. Alcohol was not to be purchased there in any form for love or money. We also visited a large meeting-hall capable of holding a couple of thousand people, and were told that it was used every year for the Annual Spiritualists’ Convention, and also during the summer for Sunday gatherings at which inspirational addresses were delivered. ”

“ They don’t tell you nothin’ worth knowin’, to begin with. Oh, but they’re plenty round here, more than you can shake a stick at; and they’re a good sort mostly, pays their bills and doesn’t drink. But they don’t pheaze me any!” The scorn of the driver, who himself came from a vigorous farming stock up country, was very instructive.
It was a sunny September afternoon. Some miles away on our right the town of New London stretched itself prettily along the banks of the Thames, a Thames that could swallow its namesake half a dozen times and show no appreciable rise. ”

“ The shadows were beginning to lengthen, and the sun had already dropped behind the shoulder of the hill, when we turned a corner and came suddenly upon the first man we had as yet seen in the community. ”

“ Of course, they’re ’most all Indian spirits, but some know more than others. Eagle Feather comes sometimes. He tells a lot, but he’s very rough and hurts me; he is violent at times and knocks me about; he don’t mean no harm, but that’s his way, you see. ”