And everything was dank and weedy and splotched
with mildew and with mold.
_O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!_
When we opened the great front door, above which was the fan-light
of Alicia's hope, just as the round front porch had the big pillars,
a damp and moldy air met us. The house had not been opened since
Sophronisba's funeral, and everything--stairs, settles, tables,
cabinets, pictures, the chairs backed inhospitably against the wall
as if to prevent anybody from sitting in them--was covered with a
shrouding pall of dust.
The hall was cross-shaped, the side passage running between the back
drawing-room and library on one side, and the dining-room and two
locked rooms on the other. It was a nice place, that side passage,
with a fireplace and settles; and beautiful windows opening upon the
tangled garden. All the down-stairs walls were paneled: precious
woods were not so hard to come by when Hynds House was built. It was
lovely, of course, but depressingly dark.
We got one of the big windows open, and let some stale damp air out
and some fresh damp air in.
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