What can it be, to make

The poplars cease to shiver and shake,
And up in the dismal air

Stand straight and stiff as the human hair,
When the human soul is dizzy with dread-
All but those two that strain
Aside in a frenzy of speechless pain,
Though never a wind sends out a breath
To tunnel the foggy rheum of death?
What can it be has power to scare
The full-grown moon to the idiot stare
Of a blasted eye in the midnight air?
Something has gone wrong;

A scream will come tearing out ere long!

Still as death,

III.

Although I listen with bated breath!
Yet something is coming, I know-is coming;
With an inward soundless humming,
Somewhere in me or in the air-

I cannot tell-but its wing is there!
Marching on to an unheard drumming,
Something is coming-coming-
Growing and coming;

And the moon is aware

Aghast in the air,

At the thing that is only coming
With an inward soundless humming,
And an unheard spectral drumming!

IV

Nothing to see and nothing to hear!
Only across the inner sky
The wing of a shadowy thought flits by,
Vague and featureless, faceless, drear--
Only a thinness to catch the eye:
Is it a dim foreboding unborn,

Or a buried memory, wasted and worn
As the fading frost of a wintry sigh?
Anon I shall have it !-anon !-It draws nigh!
A night when a something it was took place
That drove the blood from that scared

moon-face!

Hark! was that the cry of a goat,
Or the gurgle of water in a throat?
Hush! there is nothing to see or hear,
Only a silent something is near ;
No knock, no footsteps three or four,
Only a presence outside the door!
See! the moon is remembering-what?
The wail of a mother-left, lie-alone brat ?
Or a raven sharpening its beak to peck?
Or a cold blue knife and a warm white neck?
Or only a heart that burst and ceased
For a man that went away released ?

On the naked rafters of its brain,
Gaunt and wintred, see the train

Of gossiping, scandal-mongering crows,
That watch, all silent, with necks a-strain,
Wickedly knowing, with heads awry,
And the sharpened gleam of a cunning eye-
Watch, through the cracks of the ruined skull,
How the evil business goes!

-Beyond the eyes of the cherubim,
Beyond the ears of the seraphim,
Outside, forsaken, in the dim,
Phantom-haunted chaos grim,

coming

Somehow back with an inward humming.

V.

Ha! Look there! Look at that house--
Forsaken of all things-beetle and mouse!
Mark how it looks! It must have a soul!
It looks, it looks, though it cannot stir;
See the ribs of it-how they stare!
Its blind eyes yet have a seeing air!
It knows it has a soul!

Haggard it hangs o'er the slimy pool,
And gapes wide open as corpses gape:
It is the very murderer !

For the ghost has modeled himself to the shape
Of this house all sodden with woe,
Where the deed was done long, long ago,
And filled with himself his new body full-
To haunt forever his ghastly crime,
And see it come and go-

Brooding around it like motionless Time,
With a mouth that gapes and eyes that yawn,
Blear and blintering and full of the moon,
Like one aghast at a hellish dawn.
-It is coming, coming soon!

VI.

For, ever and always, when round the tune Grinds on the barrel of organ-Time, The deed is done;—and it comes anonTrue to the roll of the clock-faced moon, True to the ring of the spheric chime, True to the cosmic rhythm and myme; Every point as it first went on, Will come and go till all is gone;

And palsied with horror from garret to core,
The house cannot shut its gaping door;

Its burst eye stares as if trying to see,
And it leans as if settling heavily,

Settling heavy with sickness dull:

It also is hearing the soundless humming

VII.

O winds, winds! that lurk and peep
Under the edge of the moony fringe !
O winds, winds! up and sweep;
Up, and blow and billow the air,
Billow the air with blow and swinge;
Rend me this ghastly house of groans;
Rend and scatter the skeleton's bones
Over the deserts and mountains bare;
Blast and hurl and shiver aside
Nailed sticks and mortared stones;

Clear the phantom, with torrent and tide,
Out of the moon and out of my brain,
That the light may fall shadowless in again !

VIII.

But alas! then the ghost O'er mountain and coast

Would go roaming, roaming; and not a swine, Grubbing and talking with snork and whine On Gadarene mountains, had taken him in, But would rush to the lake to unhouse the sin ! For any charnel

This ghost is too carnal;

There is no volcano, burnt out and cold,
Whose very ashes are gray and old,
But would cast him forth in reviving flame,
To blister the sky with a smudge of shame.

IX.

Is there no help--none anywhere, Under the earth, or above the air? -Come, come, sad woman, whose tender

throat

Has a red-lipped mouth that can sing no note
Child, whose midwife, the third grim Fate,
Shears in hand, thy coming did wait!
Father, with blood-bedabbled hair!

Mother, all withered with love's despair!

coming.

VOL. VII-18

Hasten to help this misery!

Thou wast only murdered, or left forlorn :
He is a horror, a hate, a scorn!
Come, if out of the holiest blue

That the sapphire throne shines through;
For pity come, though thy fair feet stand
Next to the elder-band;

Fling thy harp on the hyaline,
Hurry thee down the spheres divine;
Come, and drive those ravens away;
Cover his eyes from the pitiless moon;
Shadow his brain from her stinging spray ;
Droop around him, a tent of love,
An odor of grace, a fanning dove;

Walk through the house with the healing

tune

Of gentle footsteps; banish the shape
Remorse calls up, thyself to ape;
Comfort him, dear, with pardon sweet;
Cool his heart from its burning heat
With the water of life that laves the feet
Of the throne of God, and the holy street.

X.

O God, he is but a living blot, Yet he lives by thee-for if thou wast not, They would vanish together, self-forgot, He and his crime :-one breathing blown From thy spirit on his would all atone, Would scatter the horror, and bring relief In an amber dawn of holy grief: God, give him sorrow; arise from within: Art thou not in him, silence in din, Stronger than anguish, deeper than sin?

XI.

Why do I tremble, a creature at bay! Tis but a dream-I drive it away. Back comes a full breath; bounds again My heart released from the nightmare train; God is in heaven-yes, everywhere; And Love, the all-shining, will kill Despair. I turn the picture to the wall, And go away.

XII.

But why is the moon so bare, up there?
And why is she so white?

And why does the moon so stare, up there-
Strangely stare, out of the night?
Why stand up the poplars
That still way?

And why do those two of them
Start astray?

And out of the black why hangs the gray ?
Why does it hang down so, I say,
Over that house, like a fringed pall
Where the dead goes by in a funeral?
-Soul of mine,

Thou the reason canst divine :-
Into thee the moon doth stare
With pallid, terror-smitten air :
Thou, and the Horror lonely-stark,
Outcast of eternal dark,
Are in nature same and one,
And thy story is not done.

-So hang the picture on thy chamber wall,
And let the white moon stare.

CHAPTER VII.

THE fish was not made into chowder; Audrey broiled it a golden brown over the hot coals; Goddard, who had the palate of an epicure, and the deft fingers of a cook, seasoned it. He was as pleased as a baby with a toy at the sight of the old damask cloth which Graff had brought and pinned down on the sand with half a dozen pieces of the famous Swenson china. But Jane, stunned as she was at the wreck of her life which she foresaw, could not help scolding at Audrey's folly in risking such priceless pottery. Her dread of Goddard's fickleness was not as overwhelming, how-❘ ever, as it would have been had she not known him so long.

"He has had such fancies and fevers a dozen times," she thought, as she stood, pale and jaded, watching him fluttering and beaming down on Audrey and the coffee-pot, radiant as a winged Mercury just lighted on the earth. "There was that pious Madame La Rouche, hippopotamus of a woman as she was; his taste for six months ran into devotion and fatness, and that silly Quaker girl with her beetles last summer; and the jolly burlesque actress afterward. It was always the good in them that he loved-some good that I had not. I had not. His taste is so pure!" and the poor young woman groaned almost audibly. 66 It will be the same after we are married, I suppose. Though he always comes back to me as he would to a comfortable

the biscuit, which was her share of the work, she set herself again as she had done every day for so many years, to find out how she was to strain her nature to match it with his. It was, she felt, the bare stalk of corn with its one or two ears stretching itself to mate with the great blossoming tree which flung wide its branches to catch every breeze.

"If he had been like Kit Graff? If I could have just canned peaches or buttered biscuit for him and satisfied him with that and-" She did not say "love," only looked across the fire at the handsome little man until the water stood in her eyes with the hunger of them. It was for him, Jenny Derby with her dull intellect and sharp perception had worked half her life to be Bohémienne and littérateuse, and groped and stretched after the æsthetic tastes and fancies so real to him, but to her such airy, unconquerable nothings.

After all, the little feast was gay and hearty enough. Goddard and Audrey, like two children out on a frolic, cooked and told stories, and sang by turns: Graff after consoling himself with observing that Goddard actually wore No. 4 boots, and that no sensible woman could care for such a little gadfly, ate his supper comfortably. Besides, the sea air had made them all hungry, except Miss Derby, who tasted nothing but talked more than anyone, her cheeks colorless and eyes burning. When the supper was over she got up and walked about.

"You will make a picture of it, you say, Niel?" shivering and glancing about her. "I never want to see the picture, then, I'm sure. These gray sands and the eternal wash of water and the dull red blotch of fire with your three faces behind it—it is all unreal and ghastly to me. As if some final crisis for one of us was coming to-night, and these common things had taken on life, and, somehow, had a prophetic meaning."

"I think I know what you mean," said Audrey, eagerly. "I have seen it when death came suddenly. The very walls and trees had a prophecy of evil. My grandmother," turning earnestly to Goddard, "had the second sight.. Many a time when she was spinning, she said that she held in her hand instead of thread the bride's dress or shroud it was to be. Miss Derby is the same. She touched the shroud just now."

"Miss Derby," irritably, "has nerves, and you are a silly, superstitious child, I'm

afraid. Do sit down, Jane, and talk common sense. You do not know how real such things are to people on the sea coast."

"We live nearer to Nature; so it is natural that she should take part with us and make some sign when we are about to die." Audrey tried to joke the matter away, but she was ill at ease, and watched Miss Derby anxiously.

"I had no intention of playing seeress or medium," said Jenny tartly. But she still went to and fro; she could not be quiet; every nerve was strung and rasped. Audrey, before night fell, had wrapped a waterproof cloak about her. It was her head rising out of this mass of black drapery, and lighted by the dull burning fire that Jane saw instead of any spirit; its rare sweetness and power made her draw her breath more quickly; what must it be then to Goddard? The poor girl did not need second sight to tell her the crisis of life was coming to her to-night; and the sands and sky and wash of water seemed to wait and listen with her.

Graff cleared his throat once or twice. "There are some queer beliefs hung around Henlopen Cape," he said, ponderously. "I don't make much account of them, though Audrey does. These old pilots and fishermen have so much time on their hands that they spend it in seeing ghosts. They'll tell you that the old Swensons and Rodneys keep guard over the Cape to this day. By the way," hesitating a little, "there was an odd thing happened to me a year or two ago. I set one of my men, a stout mulatto (Henry it was, Audrey) to ploughing a certain pasture land, one morning. ing. Presently he came to me, his yellow skin actually spotted with his fright. A man on horseback, with flowing gray hair, and sword in hand, had suddenly stood before him and commanded him to stop. His dress, as the lad described it, was that of an officer in the Continental uniform. On going to the place I found the fellow had, without knowing it, ploughed up the grave where a hundred years ago Colonel Dagmar Graff had been laid-not to rest, as it seems, but to keep watch," forcing an uneasy laugh. "There's the fact. Ĭ don't pretend to explain it. Of course Henry had never heard of Colonel Graff."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Usually, Goddard would have relished a well authenticated ghost-story as he would a good cigar, but now he was busied with the effect on Audrey. In his opinion, if

she had a fault, it was that of indifference. Very few subjects interested her; but to-night she was roused and excited by these trifles. "Not," thought Goddard, shrewdly, "that she cares for these dead Graffs, but this lonely coast and sea have come to be the reallest thing in the world to her, and she fancies through these superstitions she will get at their secrets."

Graff had beckoned one of his men who was in waiting, to carry home the basket, and now began to throw sand on the fire. "Time for home and bed," he said, hiding a yawn. They strolled slowly all together down the beach. The sun had long gone down. Inland was an unbroken, sullen darkness, except where the five gigantic white hills of sand loomed in spectral procession. A low moon hung over the sea in the far horizon, hardly strong enough to throw their shadows upon the beach. The sea was to-night simply an unknown dark and cold; the waves flowed out of it to their feet and ebbed into it again unseen but for an instant flash of dappled light on the wet sand as each died away.

"The old settlers at the Cape will tell you these sands are alive," said Audrey, with a good deal of embarrassment. "These great mountains rise out of the sea year after year, and march steadily southward. No one knows whence they came, or why they move. It is a thing which I suppose nobody could explain,' she added gravely.

"Any geography would give you the reason for it," retorted Jane sharply. "In the Landes of Gascony these dunes are-' "These are very different, of course, as Audrey says, from any European hills," interrupted Graff, gruffly. "Where do they come from?-there's the question. Do

you see those green twigs at the top of that first hill? That is not grass, but the highest branches of a pine forest under which Audrey and I have played many a day. Fourteen feet and a half these hills move southward every year; not an inch more or less. Do you think there's no intelligence in that? But they have their object," dropping his tone, "and they are following it, as sure and certain as death; and no man can stop them."

Miss Derby was hurrying on with her scientific explanation, but Goddard checked her by an amused look. "What is their purpose?" he said gently.

"It may be only a foolish tale to you," Audrey said, "but it is a fact that these mys

terious hills were not always here. The story is that shipwrecks were once so common on this coast that the people grew hardened, and would risk nothing to save the crews. One ship was suffered to go down within sight of land when a single boat could have rescued the men on board. A man named Cortrell was the only one who saw it, and he sat quiet, too selfish to venture to their help. One of the sailors, who was washed ashore, lived long enough, the story goes, to pray that the vengeance of God might pursue this man from out of the sea until there should be not one drop of his blood, or trace that he had lived, left on the earth; he swore too that he would not sleep in his grave until this vengeance was fulfilled." Well?"

That is the legend; the facts are that these dunes did rise out of the sea that very year, and have gone down the coast until every hearth-stone of the Cortrells is buried out of sight. The old man's two sons went down at sea: he was lost in a quicksand, it is supposed; for he went out one day and never returned. Only his whip and a sunken spot in the sand showed where the sea had stretched its fingers inland to claim him.”

"The rest of the story may be true, too," said Graff, "for all ship-wrecked sailors were buried hereabout in the sand, and here you see the result." He stopped and pointed to the side of a white hillock, whence protruded a broken coffin some glistening polished bones. "Hide them as you will, the wind uncovers them. The sailors are keeping watch still."

and

"What beastly inhumanity! The town of Lewes ought to look for the fate of the Cortrells," said Goddard, with a shudder. "Come away, Audrey."

"The whole tradition has taken a curious meaning here," said Audrey. "They say that the sea stretches out its hands to punish selfishness. Sand or wave creeps over every man's life who lives for himself alone. He is sure to die by the one or the other."

They had reached the Graff house now, and paused at the gate to bid good night to Jane. Kit went in with her, as bound by hospitality. "Mr. Goddard will leave you safely at home, Audrey," he said with an air of ownership. When he entered the house he found, much to his relief, that Jane had gone to her own room. She was watching from the windows the two dark figures passing down the road. They did