H. B. Marriott Watson

“ Suddenly, and when we were about the heart of the thicket, little noises got up among the dead leaves, and a thin whistling in the skeleton branches. She clutched me in a quick terror, and I soothed her gently.
'It is nothing, my love,' I said; 'the wind has broken into the valley.'
'It is the graves,' she gasped. 'The spirits are come out.'
She turned her face aslant towards the growing noises, which appeared to creep along the ground; the dead leaves hissed and slithered. ”

“ Over the moor, which stretched solitary to the black hills, it scudded and romped towards the back parts of the valley; and as I turned upon the very threshold of the wood it seemed as though the plain was in the possession of many roystering tenants—so much of stir and motion was visible among the bracken and the gorse. On the outset of the forest the straight columns of the firs were creaking, but the inner recesses lay hushed and dark, secluded in a shelving bottom. I think that the noises of the fierce wind, which blew with an icy breath, had restored to her a sense of security ”

“ The church rose in a mutter of fear. I made a step to her. But at the chancel rails, and where the great Brazen Cross uplifts itself below the oriel windows, she fell suddenly to her knees. I watched her face. The devils jigged in her hair; it stirred gently, and then flowed soft and rich about her neck; a shudder rushed through her; she hid her face in her hands. And when she raised it again, and her eyes sought mine, they were filled with a quiet smile of love, dewy with tears, and desolate with a sad and hopeless pain. ”