FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>  
way," where suicides were buried in times past. This road was the old high-road, where the mail coach ran, and along which, on such a night as this, a hundred years ago, a horseman rode his last ride. As he passed the church on his fatal journey did anything warn him how soon his headless body would be buried beneath its shadow? Bill wondered. He wondered if he were old or young--what sort of a horse he rode--whose cruel hands dragged him into the shadow of the yews and slew him, and where his head was hidden, and why. Did the church look just the same, and the moon shine just as brightly, that night a century ago? Bully Tom was right. The weathercock and moon sit still, whatever happens. The boy watched the gleaming high road as it lay beyond the dark aisle of trees, till he fancied he could hear the footfalls of the solitary horse--and yet, no! The sound was not upon the hard road, but nearer; it was not the clatter of hoofs, but something--and a rustle--and then Bill's blood seemed to freeze in his veins, as he saw a white figure, wrapped in what seemed to be a shroud, glide out of the shadow of the yews and move slowly down the lane. When it reached the road it paused, raised a long arm warningly towards him for a moment, and then vanished in the direction of the churchyard. What would have been the consequence of the intense fright the poor lad experienced is more than anyone can say, if at that moment the church clock had not begun to strike nine. The familiar sound, close in his ears, roused him from the first shock, and before it had ceased he contrived to make a desperate rally of his courage, flew over the road, and crossed the two fields that now lay between him and home without looking behind him. CHAPTER III. "It was to her a real _grief of heart_, acute, as children's sorrows often are. "We beheld this from the opposite windows--and, seen thus from a little distance, how many of our own and of other people's sorrows might not seem equally trivial, and equally deserving of ridicule!" HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. When Bill got home he found the household busy with a much more practical subject than that of ghosts and haunted yew-trees. Bessy was ill. She had felt a pain in her side all the day, which towards night had become so violent that the doctor was sent for, who had pronounced it pleurisy, and had sent her to bed. He was just coming downstairs as Bill b
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>  



Top keywords:

church

 

shadow

 

buried

 
wondered
 
sorrows
 

moment

 
equally
 

fields

 

CHAPTER

 

crossed


strike
 

familiar

 

experienced

 

desperate

 

courage

 
contrived
 

roused

 

ceased

 

haunted

 
ghosts

practical

 
subject
 

pleurisy

 

coming

 

downstairs

 

pronounced

 

violent

 
doctor
 

household

 

windows


distance

 

opposite

 

beheld

 

children

 

ridicule

 

CHRISTIAN

 

ANDERSEN

 

deserving

 

trivial

 

people


wrapped

 

dragged

 

hidden

 

weathercock

 

century

 

brightly

 
beneath
 

hundred

 

suicides

 

horseman