sh up, into which, with
little trouble, I lifted myself and passed. My foot, as I lowered it,
stood on a body: and this made me angry and restless. I hissed a curse,
and passed on, scraping the carpet with my soles, that I might hurt no
one: for I did not wish to hurt any one. Even in the almost darkness of
the room I recognised Peters' furniture, as I expected: for the house
was his on a long lease, and I knew that his mother had had the
intention to occupy it after his death. But as I passed into the
passage, all was mere blank darkness, and I, depending upon the lamp,
had left the matches in the other house. I groped my way to the stairs,
and had my foot on the first step, when I was stopped by a vicious
shaking of the front-door, which someone seemed to be at with hustlings
and the most urgent poundings: I stood with peering stern brows two or
three minutes, for I knew that if I once yielded to the flinching at my
heart, no mercy would be shown me in this house of tragedy, and
thrilling shrieks would of themselves arise and ring through its haunted
chambers. The rattling continued an inordinate time, and so instant and
imperative, that it seemed as if it could not fail to force the door.
But, though horrified, I whispered to my heart that it could only be the
storm which was struggling at it like the grasp of a man, and after a
time went on, feeling my way by the broad rail, in my brain somehow the
thought of a dream which I had had in the _Boreal_ of the woman Clodagh,
how she let drop a fluid like pomegranate-seeds into water, and tendered
it to Peter Peters: and it was a mortal purging draught; but I would not
stop, but step by step went up, though I suffered very much, my brows
peering at the utter darkness, and my heart shocked at its own rashness.
I got to the first landing, and as I turned to ascend the second part of
the stair, my left hand touched something icily cold: I made some quick
instinctive movement of terror, and, doing so, my foot struck against
something, and I stumbled, half falling over what seemed a small table
there. Immediately a horrible row followed, for something fell to the
ground: and at that instant, ah, I heard something--a voice--a human
voice, which uttered words close to my ear--the voice of Clodagh, for I
knew it: yet not the voice of Clodagh in the flesh, but her voice
clogged with clay and worms, and full of effort, and thick-tongued: and
in that ghastly speech of the grave I dist