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The Shadow in the Corner PDF

The Shadow in the Corner

 

Michael Bascom retired later than usual that night. He was in the habit of sitting at his books long after every other lamp but his own had been extinguished. Tonight his studies were of a peculiarly interesting kind, and belonged to the order of recreational reading rather than of hard work.

The old eight−day clock on the stairs was striking two as Michael slowly ascended, candle in hand, to the hitherto unknown region of the attics. At the top of the staircase he found himself facing a dark narrow passage which led northwards, a passage that was in itself sufficient to strike terror to a superstitious mind, so black and uncanny did it look.

He opened the door of the north room, and stood looking about him. It was a large room, with a ceiling that sloped on one side, but was fairly lofty upon the other; an old−fashioned room, full of old−fashioned furniture—big, ponderous, clumsy—associated with a day that was gone and people that were dead. A walnut−wood wardrobe stared him in the face—a wardrobe with brass handles, which gleamed out of the darkness like diabolical eyes. There was a tall four−post bedstead, which had been cut down on one side to accommodate the slope of the ceiling, and which had a misshapen and deformed aspect in consequence. There was an old mahogany bureau that smelt of secrets. There were some heavy old chairs with rush bottoms, mouldy with age, and much worn. There was a corner washstand, with a big basin and a small jug—the odds and ends of past years. Carpet there was none.

“It is a dismal room,” mused Michael.

To him it mattered nothing where he slept. He went to bed, determined to sleep his soundest. The bed was comfortable, well supplied with blankets, rather luxurious than otherwise, and he felt that agreeable sense of fatigue which promises profound and restful slumber.

He dropped off to sleep quickly, but woke with a start ten minutes afterwards. What was this consciousness of a burden of care that had awakened him—this sense of all−pervading trouble that weighed upon his spirits and oppressed his heart—this icy horror of some terrible crisis in life through which he must inevitably pass?

 

 

Adapted from: The Shadow in the Corner

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915)