“I don’t use no stronger language than what de good book uses anyways. Help me to lift de trunk out, young marster.”
“Let us see first whether there is any one up in the gate-house,” said David Lindsay, as he left the side of the wagon.
Then he suddenly stood still gazing.
The sombre scene around them had a weird glamour that spell-bound him to the spot.
“What place is this?” he muttered to himself. “It is like a place seen in a dream. It might be a place in some other planet, in some dead earth, or extinct sun!”
It was an awful scene! Mountains rose on every side, their bases clothed with dark forest.
Nearer and dimly visible under the overclouded night sky, towered hideous black rocks, and dark, spectral pine trees that seemed to take goblin shapes in the obscurity. Far back on the right hand, from the midst of these, and scarcely to be distinguished from them, loomed the roof and chimneys of Gryphynshold.
The utter silence as of death that reigned over all, added to the gloom, approaching horror, of this stupendous scene.
David Lindsay turned from it with a feeling of superstitious awe, to the formidable iron gate in the stone wall that ran along the old park on the right hand of the road.
The gate was not locked, but hung heavily upon its strong, rusty hinges, shut by its own weight.