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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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351 you have dreamt of then?” I said. “Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!” he answered. “Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such a transformation on raising the lid; but I’m better pleased that it should not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed. It began oddly. You know, I was wild after she died, and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me,--her spirit--I have a strong faith in ghosts; I have a conviction that they can, and do exist, among us! “The day she was buried there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter--all round was solitary: I didn’t fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the den so late, and no one else had business to bring them there. “Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself--‘I’ll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I’ll think it is this north wind that chills me; and if she be motionless, it is sleep.’ “I got a spade from the toolhouse, and began to delve with all my might--it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. ‘If I can only get this off,’ I muttered, ‘I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!’ and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living |
