“The—your trunk, sir; how about that?”
“If you think you’ve got room for it, I––”
“Sure we have.”
“Take it, too. I’m going to pack what clothes I need in a suitcase. So much easier to carry than a trunk.” He was unconsciously funny, and did not understand the well-meant guffaw of the foreman.
It was a dreary, desolate night that he spent in the topsy-turvy cottage. He was quite alone except for the queer shapes and shadows that haunted him. When he was downstairs he could hear strange whisperings above; when he was upstairs the mutterings were below. 195 Things stirred and creaked that had never shown signs of animation before. The coals in the fireplace spat with a malignant fury, as if blown upon by evil spirits lurking in the chimney until he went to bed so that they might come forth to revel in the gloom. The howl of the wind had a different note, a wail that seemed to come from a child in pain; forbidding sounds came up from the empty cellar; always there was something that stood directly behind him, ready to lay on a ghostly hand. He crouched in the chair, feeling never so small, never so impotent as now. The chair was partially wrapped for crating. Every time he moved there was a crackle of paper that sounded like the rattle of thunder before the final ear-splitting crash. As still as a mouse he sat and listened for new sounds, more sinister than those that had gone before; and, like the mouse, he jumped with each recurring sound.
Towering crates seemed on the verge of toppling over upon him, boxes and barrels appeared to draw closer together to present a barrier against any means of escape; cords and ropes wriggled with life as he stared at 196 them, serpentine things that kept on creeping toward him, never away.
Oh, for the sound of Phoebe’s voice!
“Quoth the raven, nevermore!” That sombre sentence haunted him. He tried to close his ears against it, but to no purpose. It crept up from some inward lurking place in his being, crooning a hundred cadences in spite of all that he could do to change the order of his thoughts.
Far in the night he dashed fearfully up to his dismantled bedroom, a flickering candle in his hand. He had gone about the place to see that all of the doors and windows were fastened. Removing his shoes and his coat, he hurriedly crawled in between the blankets and blew out the light. Sleep would not come. He was sobbing. He got up twice and lighted the candle, once to put away the motto, again to take out of the trunk the cabinet size photograph of himself and Nellie and the baby, taken when the latter was three years old. Hugging this to his breast, he started back to bed.
A sudden thought staggered him. For a long time he stood in the middle of the room, shivering as he debated the great question this 197 thought presented. At last, with a shudder, he urged his reluctant feet to carry him across the room to the single gas jet. Closing his eyes he turned on the gas full force and then leaped into the bed, holding the portrait to his heart. Then he waited for the end of everything.