ventures. And now began that period of suspense which 'takes it out of
me' even more than the encounter with the phenomenon itself. Over and
over again I asked myself the hackneyed, but none the less thrilling
question, 'What form will it take? Will it be simply a phantasm of a
dead Celt, or some peculiarly grotesque and awful elemental[1] attracted
to the spot by human remains?'

[1] Either a barrowvian or vagrarian. Vide _Haunted Houses of London_
(published by Eveleigh Nash) and _Ghostly Phenomena_ (published by
Werner Laurie).

"Minute after minute passed, and nothing happened. It is curious, how at
night, especially when the moon is visible, the landscape seems to
undergo a complete metamorphosis. Objects not merely increase in size,
but vary in shape, and become possessed of an animation suggestive of
all sorts of lurking, secretive possibilities. It was so now. The
boulders in front and around me, presented the appearance of grotesque
beasts, whose hidden eyes I could feel following my every movement with
sly interest. The one solitary fir adorning the plateau was a tree no
longer but an ogre, _pro tempus_, concealing the grim terrors of its
spectral body beneath its tightly folded limbs. The stones of the
circle opposite were ghoulish, hump-backed things that crouched and
squatted in all kinds of fantastic attitudes and tried to read my
thoughts. The shadows, too, that, swarming from the silent tarns and
meadows, ascended with noiseless footsteps the rugged sides of the hill,
and, taking cover of even the smallest obstacles, stalked me with
unremitting persistency, were no mere common shadows, but intangible,
pulpy things that breathed the spirit of the Great Unknown. Yet nothing
specified came to frighten me. The stillness was so emphatic that each
time I moved, the creaking of my clothes and limbs created echoes. I
yawned, and from on all sides of me came a dozen other yawns. I sighed,
and the very earth beneath me swayed with exaggerated sympathy.

"The silence irritated me. I grew angry; I coughed, laughed, whistled;
and from afar off, from the distant lees, and streams, and spinneys,
came a repetition of the noises.

"Then the blackest of clouds creeping slowly over the moor crushed the
sheen out of the valley and smothered everything in sable darkness. The
silence of death supervened, and my anger turned to fear. Around me
there was now--NOTHING--only a void. Black ether and space! Space! a
sanctuary f