The Seaboard Parish Volume 2 by George MacDonald
page 69 of 182 (37%)
page 69 of 182 (37%)
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of sea-water, and nows and thens a great spout coming in through a hole in
the rock; for it was high-water and a wind off the sea, as I tell you. And there was a coffin afloat on the water, and every time the spout come through, it set it knocking agen the side o' the wout, and that was the ghost." "What a horrible idea!" I said, with a half-shudder at the unrest of the dead. The old man uttered a queer long-drawn sound,--neither a chuckle, a crow, nor a laugh, but a mixture of all three,--and turned himself yet again to the work which, as he approached the end of his narration, he had suspended, that he might make his story _tell_, I suppose, by looking me in the face. And as he turned he said, "I thought you would like to be comfortable then as well as other people, sir." I could not help laughing to see how the cunning old fellow had caught me. I have not yet been able to find out how much of truth there was in his story. From the twinkle of his eye I cannot help suspecting that if he did not invent the tale, he embellished it, at least, in order to produce the effect which he certainly did produce. Humour was clearly his predominant disposition, the reflex of which was to be seen, after a mild lunar fashion, on the countenance of his wife. Neither could I help thinking with pleasure, as I turned away, how the merry little old man would enjoy telling his companions how he had posed the new parson. Very welcome was he to his laugh for my part. Yet I gladly left the churchyard, with its sunshine above and its darkness below. Indeed I had to look up to the glittering vanes on the four pinnacles of the church-tower, dwelling aloft in the clean sunny air, to get the feeling of the dark vault, and the floating coffin, and the knocking heard in the windy church, out of my |
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