Jelnik, with a
faint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with a
wave of the hand, he continued:
"Behold me, then, footing it up and down the highways and byways of
the world. But it was as if I had disobeyed the dead, and they would
give me no rest. So presently I stopped short and came to
Hyndsville.
"With Richard's directions in my possession, it was comparatively
easy for me to find the passageways, and after the old woman's death
I had chance to examine the house room by room. And sometimes,
Sophy, when I have been alone in this tragic old place--" he paused,
and looked at me with a puzzled frown--"it has seemed to me that
there were--well, secret influences, say; things outside of our
sphere. I have felt a sense of horror and despair descend upon my
spirit, a weight almost too heavy to bear. Sometimes it would be so
powerful, so insistent, so vivid, that I had to fly from it.
"Then I happened to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old man
reputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said that
troubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is the
old and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp and
drove the evil spirit out of Saul the king.
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