The Cold Hand.



There is a rocky hill in what was till recently the town of Dorchester,
looking out over Boston Bay. It takes its name from the stiff black savins
with which it is covered, and which contrive to find nourishment and
support in the rock to which they cling. Some of these trees show their
great age by their gnarled and knotted trunks and boughs. Black and
impassive they stand, alike in the brightest summer or the grayest winter,
sighing restlessly in the breeze, but wailing piteously when the sea-winds
sweep over the hill. Partway up the little rocky eminence stands an old
house, now fast falling to pieces. It is a low building, with a gambrel
roof and a huge chimney. It has stood there many years, for it was built
not long after the Revolution, and it might have stood many years more had
it not been suffered to go to decay with a carelessness which seemed to
belie the general thrift of the town.

Wandering over the hill one bright winter day, with no companion but a
large dog, I stopped to look in at the window of the old house. The glass
was gone from the sash, and the sash itself was broken in many places; but
the obscurity was so deep within that I obtained only a partial glimpse of
an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I
felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its
forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where
the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of
everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect