THE HOUSE ON
THE BORDERLAND
William Hope Hodgson
From the Manuscript discovered in 1877 by Messrs. Tonnison and Berreggnog in the Ruins that
lie to the South of the Village of Kraighten, in the West of Ireland. Set out here, with Notes.
| [I] | THE FINDING OF THE MANUSCRIPT |
| [II] | THE PLAIN OF SILENCE |
| [III] | THE HOUSE IN THE ARENA |
| [IV] | THE EARTH |
| [V] | THE THING IN THE PIT |
| [VI] | THE SWINE-THINGS |
| [VII] | THE ATTACK |
| [VIII] | AFTER THE ATTACK |
| [IX] | IN THE CELLARS |
| [X] | THE TIME OF WAITING |
| [XI] | THE SEARCHING OF THE GARDENS |
| [XII] | THE SUBTERRANEAN PIT |
| [XIII] | THE TRAP IN THE GREAT CELLAR |
| [XIV] | THE SEA OF SLEEP |
| [XV] | THE NOISE IN THE NIGHT |
| [XVI] | THE AWAKENING |
| [XVII] | THE SLOWING ROTATION |
| [XVIII] | THE GREEN STAR |
| [XIX] | THE END OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM |
| [XX] | THE CELESTIAL GLOBES |
| [XXI] | THE DARK SUN |
| [XXII] | THE DARK NEBULA |
| [XXIII] | PEPPER |
| [XXIV] | THE FOOTSTEPS IN THE GARDEN |
| [XXV] | THE THING FROM THE ARENA |
| [XXVI] | THE LUMINOUS SPECK |
| [XXVII] | CONCLUSION |
TO MY FATHER
| (Whose feet tread the lost aeons) |
| Open the door, |
| And listen! |
| Only the wind's muffled roar, |
| And the glisten |
| Of tears 'round the moon. |
| And, in fancy, the tread |
| Of vanishing shoon— |
| Out in the night with the Dead. |
| "Hush! And hark |
| To the sorrowful cry |
| Of the wind in the dark. |
| Hush and hark, without murmur or sigh, |
| To shoon that tread the lost aeons: |
| To the sound that bids you to die. |
| Hush and hark! Hush and Hark!" |
| Shoon of the Dead |
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION TO THE MANUSCRIPT
Many are the hours in which I have pondered upon the story that is set forth in the following pages. I trust that my instincts are not awry when they prompt me to leave the account, in simplicity, as it was handed to me.
And the MS. itself—You must picture me, when first it was given into my care, turning it over, curiously, and making a swift, jerky examination. A small book it is; but thick, and all, save the last few pages, filled with a quaint but legible handwriting, and writ very close. I have the queer, faint, pit-water smell of it in my nostrils now as I write, and my fingers have subconscious memories of the soft, "cloggy" feel of the long-damp pages.
I read, and, in reading, lifted the Curtains of the Impossible that blind the mind, and looked out into the unknown. Amid stiff, abrupt sentences I wandered; and, presently, I had no fault to charge against their abrupt tellings; for, better far than my own ambitious phrasing, is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the old Recluse, of the vanished house, had striven to tell.