Clairvoyance

By Blackwood, Algernon Henry

Book Id: WPLBN0000628220
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.4 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Clairvoyance
Author:	Blackwood, Algernon Henry
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection, Blackmask Online Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Blackmask Online


Citation APA MLA Chicago Henry Blackwood, B. A. (n.d.). Clairvoyance. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.us/

Description
Excerpt: In the darkest corner, where the firelight could not reach him, he sat listening to the stories. His young hostess occupied the corner on the other side; she was also screened by shadows; and between them stretched the horse?shoe of eager, frightened faces that seemed all eyes. Behind yawned the blackness of the big room, running as it were without a break into the night. Some one crossed on tiptoe and drew a blind up with a rattle, and at the sound all started: through the window, opened at the top, came a rustle of the poplar leaves that stirred like footsteps in the wind. ?There?s a strange man walking past the shrubberies,? whispered a nervous girl; ?I saw him crouch and hide. I saw his eyes!? ?Nonsense! came sharply from a male member of the group; ?it?s far too dark to see. You heard the wind.? For mist had risen from the river just below the lawn, pressing close against the windows of the old house like a soft grey hand, and through it the stir of leaves was faintly audible... Then, while several called for lights, others remembered that hop?pickers were still about in the lanes, and the tramps this autumn overbold and insolent. All, perhaps, wished secretly for the sun. Only the elderly man in the corner sat quiet and unmoved, contributing nothing. He had told no fearsome story. He had evaded, indeed, many openings expressly made for him, though fully aware that to his well?known interest in psychical things was partly due his presence in the week?end party. ?I never have experiences that way,? he said shortly when some one asked him point blank for a tale; ?I have no unusual powers.? There was perhaps the merest hint of contempt in his tone, but the hostess from her darkened corner quickly and tactfully covered his retreat. And he wondered. For he knew why she invited him. The haunted room, he was well aware, had been specially allotted to him.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: Clairvoyance, 1 -- Algernon Blackwood, 1