 The Striding Place by Gertrude Atherton. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kessie. Weigle, continental and detached, tired early of grouse shooting, to stand propped against a sod fence while his host's workmen routed up the birds with long poles and drove them towards the wading guns, made him feel himself a parody on the ancestors who had roamed the moors and forests of this west riding of Yorkshire in hot pursuit of game worth the killing. But when in England in August, he always accepted whatever proffered for the season and invited his host to shoot pheasants on his estates in the south. The amusements of life, he argued, should be accepted with the same philosophy as its ills. It had been a bad day. A heavy rain had made the moor so spongy that it fairly sprang beneath the feet. Whether or not the grouse had haunts of their own, wherein they were immune from rheumatism, the bag had been small. The woman, too, were an unusually dull lot with the exception of a new-minded debutante who bothered Weigle at dinner by demanding the verbal restoration of the vague paintings on the vaulted roof above them. But it was no one of these things that sat on Weigle's mind as, when the other men went up to bed, he let himself out of the castle and sauntered down to the river. His intimate friend, the companion of his boyhood, the chum of his college days, his fellow traveler in many lands, the man for whom he possessed stronger affection than for all men, had mysteriously disappeared two days ago, and his track might have sprung to the upper air for all trace he had left behind him. He had been a guest on the adjoining estate during the past week, shooting with the fervor of the true sportsman, making love in the intervals to Adeline Kavan, and apparently in the best of spirits. As far as was known, there was nothing to lower his mental mercury, for his rent roll was a large one. Miss Kavan blushed whenever he looked at her, and, being one of the best shots in England, he was never happier than in August. The suicide theory was preposterous, all agreed, and there was as little reason to believe him murdered. Nevertheless, he had walked out of March Abbey two nights ago without hat or overcoat, and had not been seen since. The country was being patrolled night and day. A hundred keepers and workmen were beating the woods and poking the bogs on the moors, but as yet, not so much as a handkerchief had been found. Wiggle did not believe for a moment that Wyatt Gifford was dead, and although it was impossible not to be affected by the general uneasiness, he was disposed to be more angry than frightened. At Cambridge, Gifford had been an incorrigible practical joker, and by no means had outgrown the habit. It would be like him to cut across the country in his evening clothes, board a cattle train, and amuse himself touching up the picture of the sensation in West Riding. However, Wiggle's affliction for his friend was too deep to companion with tranquility in the present state of doubt, and instead of going to bed early with other men, he determined to walk until ready for sleep. He went down to the river and followed the path through the woods. There was no moon, but the stars sprinkled their cold light upon the pretty belt of water, flowing placidly, plastered wood and ruin, between green masses of overhanging rocks, or sloping banks tangled with tree and shrub, leaping occasionally over stones with the harsh notes of an angry scold to recover its equanimity the moment the way was clear again. It was very dark in the depths where Wiggle trod. He smiled as he recalled a remark of Giffords. An English wood is like a good many other things in life, very promising at a distance, but a hollow mockery when you get within. You see daylight on both sides, and the sun freckles the very bracken. Our woods need the night to make them seem what they ought to be, what they once were before our ancestors' descendants demanded so much more money in these so much more various days. Wiggle strolled along, smoking, and thinking of his friend, his pranks, many of which had done more credit to his imagination than this, and recalling conversations that had lasted the night through. Just before the end of the London season, they had walked the streets one hot night after a party, discussing the various theories of the soul's destiny. That afternoon, they had met at the coffin of a college friend whose mind had been in blank for the past three years. Some months previously, they had called at the asylum to see him. His expression had been senile, his face imprinted with the record of debauchery. In death, the face was placid, intelligent, without ignoble lineation, the face of the man they had known at college. Wiggle and Gifford had had no time to comment there, and the afternoon and evening were full, but coming forth from the house of festivity together, they had reverted almost at once to the topic. I cherish the theory, Gifford had said, that the soul sometimes lingers in the body after death. During madness, of course, it is an impotent prisoner, albeit a conscious one. Fancy its agony and its horror. What more natural than that, when the life-spark goes out, the tortured soul should take possession of the vacant skull, and triumph once more for a few hours while old friends look their last. It has had time to repent while compelled to crouch and behold the state of its work, and it has shrived itself into a state of comparative purity. If I had my way, I should stay inside my bones until the coffin had gone into its niche, that I might aviate from my poor old comrade the tragic impersonality of death, and I should like to see just as done to it as it were, to see it lowered among its ancestors with the ceremonian solemnity that it or its do. I'm afraid that if I'd severed myself too quickly, I should yield to curiosity and hasten to investigate the mysteries of space. You believe in the soul as an independent entity, then, that it and the vital principle are not one and the same. Absolutely. The body and the soul are twins, life comrades, sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, but always loyal in the last instance. Someday, when I am tired of the world, I shall go to India and become a Mahatma, solely for the pleasure of receiving proof during life of this independent relationship. Suppose you were not sealed up properly and returned after one of your astral flights to find your earthly part unfit for habitation. It is an experiment I don't think I should care to try, unless even juggling with soul and flesh had pawled. That would not be an uninteresting predicament. I should rather enjoy experimenting with broken machinery. The high, wild roar of water suddenly smote upon Wagle's ear and checked his memories. He left the wood and walked out on the huge slippery stones which nearly closed the river wharf at this point, and watched the waters boil down into the narrow pass with their furious untiring energy. The black quiet of the woods rose high on either side. The stars seemed colder and whiter just above. On either hand, the perspective of the river might have run into a rayless cavern. There was no lonelier spot in England, nor one which had the right to claim so many ghosts, if ghosts there were. Wagle was not a coward, but he recalled uncomfortably the tales of those that had been done to death in the Strid. Footnote one. This striding place is called the Strid, a name which it took of Yor, a thousand years hath it borne the name, and it shall a thousand more. Wordsworth's boy of Egremond had been disposed of by the practical Whittaker, but countless others, more venturesome than wise, had gone down to that narrow boiling course, never to appear in the still pool a few yards beyond. Below the great rocks which formed the walls of the Strid was believed to be a natural vault onto whose shelves the dead were drawn. The spot had an ugly fascination. Wagle stood, visioning skeletons, uncoffined and green, the home of the eyeless things which had devoured all that had covered and filled that rattling symbol of man's mortality, then fell to wondering if anyone had attempted to leap the Strid of late. It was covered with slime. He had never seen it look so treacherous. He shuddered and turned away, impelled despite his manhood to flee the spot. As he did so, something tossing in the foam below the fall, something as white yet independent of it, caught his eye and arrested his step. Then he saw that it was describing a contrary motion to the rushing water, an upward backward motion. Wagle stood rigid, breathless. He fancied he heard the crackling of his hair. Was that a hand? It thrust itself still higher above the boiling foam, turned sidewise, and four frantic fingers were distinctly visible against the black rock beyond. Wagle's superstitious terror left him. A man was there, struggling to free himself from the suction beneath the Strid, swept down doubtless, but a moment before his arrival, perhaps as he stood with his back to the current. He stepped as close to the edge as he dared. The hand doubled as if in implication, shaking savagely in the face of that force, which leaves its creatures to immutable law. Then spread wide again, clutching, expanding, crying for help as audibly as the human voice. Wagle dashed to the nearest tree, dragged and twisted off a branch with his strong arms, and returned as swiftly to the Strid. The hand was in the same place, still gesticulating as wildly. The body was undoubtedly caught in the rocks below, perhaps already halfway along one of those hideous shelves. Wagle let himself down upon a lower rock, braced his shoulder against the mass beside him. Then, leaning out over the water, thrust the branch into the hand. The fingers clutched at it convulsively. Wagle tugged powerfully. His own feet dragged perilously near the edge. For a moment, he produced no impression. Then an arm shot above the waters. The blood sprang to Wagle's head. He was choked with the impression that the Strid had him in her roaring hold, and he saw nothing. Then the mist cleared. The hand and arm were nearer, although the rest of the body was still concealed by the foam. Wagle peered out with distended eyes. The meager light revealed in the cuff slinks of a peculiar device. The fingers clutching the branch were as familiar. Wagle forgot the slippery stones, the terrible death if he stepped too far. He pulled with passionate will and muscle. Memories flung themselves into the hot light of his brain, trooping rapidly upon each other's heels, as in the thought of the drowning. Most of the pleasures of his life, good and bad, were identified in some way with this friend. Scenes of college days, of travel, where they had deliberately sought adventure and stood between one another and death upon more occasions than one, of hours of delightful companionship among the treasures of art, and others in the pursuit of pleasure, flashed like the changing particles of kaleidoscope. Wagle had loved several women, but he would have flouted in these moments the thought that he had ever loved any woman as he loved Wyatt Gifford. There were so many charming women in the world, and in the 32 years of his life, he had never known another man to whom he had cared to give his intimate friendship. He threw himself upon his face. His wrists were cracking, the skin was torn from his hands, the fingers still gripped the stick. There was life in them yet. Suddenly something gave way. The hands swung about, tearing the branch from Wagle's grasp. The body had been liberated and flung outward, though still submerged by the foam and spray. Wagle scrambled to his feet and sprang along the rocks, knowing that the danger from suction was over, and that Gifford must be carried straight by it pool. Gifford was a fish in the water and could live under it longer than most men. If he survived this, it would not be the first time that his pluck and science had saved him from drowning. Wagle reached the pool. A man in his evening clothes floated on it. His face turned towards a projecting rock over which his arm had fallen, upholding the body. The hand that had held the branch hung limply over the rock, its white reflection visible in the black water. Wagle plunged into the shallow pool, lifted Gifford in his arms, and returned to the bank. He laid the body down and threw off his coat that he might be the freer to practice the methods of resuscitation. He was glad of the moment's respite. The valiant life in the man might have been exhausted in that last struggle. He had not dared to look at his face to put his ear to the heart. The hesitation lasted but a moment. There was no time to lose. He turned to his prostrate friend. As he did so, something strange and disagreeable smote his senses. For a half moment, he did not appreciate its nature. Then his teeth clacked together, his feet, his outstretched arms pointed toward the woods. But he sprang to the side of the man and bent down and peered into his face. There was no face. End of recording. And yet my heart will not confess he owes the malady that doth my life besiege. All's well that ends well. That was the worst of Ravenel Hall. The passages were long and gloomy. The rooms were musty and dull. Even the pictures were somber and their subjects dire. On an autumn evening, when the wind soft and wailed to the trees in the park, and the dead leaves whistled and chatter'd while the rain clamored at the windows, small wonder that folks with gentle nerves went astraying in their wits. An acute nervous system is a grievous burden on the deck of a yacht under sunlit skies. At Ravenel, the chain of nerves was prone to clash and jangle a funeral march. Nerves must be pampered in a tea-drinking community, and the ghosts that your grandfather, with a skin full of port, could face and never tremble sets you in your sobriety, sweating and shivering. Or becoming scared, poor ghost, of your bolds' dyes and dropping jaw, he quenches expectation by not appearing at all. So I am left to conclude that it was tea which made my acquaintance afraid to stay at Ravenel. Even Wilvern gave over, and as he is in the guards and a polo-player, his nerves ought to be strong enough. On the night before he went I was explaining to him my theory that if you place some drops of human blood near you and then concentrate your thoughts, you will after a while see before you a man or a woman who will stay with you during the long hours of the night and even meet you at unexpected places during the day. I was explaining this theory, I repeat, when he interrupted me with words, senseless enough, which sent me fencing and parrying strangers on my guard. I say, Alistair, my dear chap, he began, you ought to get out of this place and go up to town and knock about a bit. You really ought to know. Yes, I replied, and get poisoned at the hotels by bad food and at the clubs by bad talk, I suppose. No, thank you. And let me say that your care for my health innervates me. What you can do as you like, says he, wrapping with his feet on the floor. I'm hanged if I stay here after tomorrow. I'll be staring mad if I do. He was my last visitor. Some weeks after his departure I was sitting in the library with my drops of blood by me. I had got my theory nearly perfect by this time, but there was one difficulty. The figure which I had ever before me was the figure of an old woman with her hair divided in the middle and her hair fell to her shoulders, white on one side and black on the other. She was a very complete old woman, but alas, she was eyeless. And when I tried to construct the eyes she would shrivel and rot in my sight. But tonight I was thinking, thinking as I had never thought before. And the eyes were just creeping into the head when I heard a terrible crash outside as if some heavy substance had fallen. All of a sudden the door was flung open and two maid servants entered. They glanced at the rug under my chair and at that they turned a sick white, cried on God and huddled out. How dare you enter the library in this manner! I demanded sternly. No answer came back from them so I started in pursuit. I found all the servants in the house gathered in a knot at the end of the passage. Mrs. Pebble, I said smartly to the housekeeper, I want those two women discharged tomorrow. It's an outrage, you ought to be more careful. But she was not attending to me. Her face was distorted with terror. Ah, dear, ah, dear, she went. We'd all better go to the library together, says she to the others. Am I a master of my own house, Mrs. Pebble? I inquired, bringing my knuckles down with a bang on the table. None of them seemed to see me or hear me. I might as well have been shrieking in a desert. I followed them down the passage and forbade them to enter the library. But they trooped past me and stood with a clutter around the hearth rug. Then three or four of them began dragging and lifting as if they were lifting a helpless body and stumbled with their imaginary burden over to a sofa. Old Somes the butler stood near. Poor young gentleman, he said with a sob. I've known him since he was a baby. And to think of him being dead like this and so young too, I crossed the room. What is all this, Somes? I cried, shaking him roughly by the shoulders. I am not dead. I am here, here. As he did not stir, I got a little scared. Somes, old friend, I called. Don't you know me? Don't you know the little boy you used to play with? Say I am not dead, Somes. Please, Somes. He stooped down and kissed the sofa. I think one of the men ought to ride over to the village for the doctor, Mr. Somes, says Mrs. Pebble, and he shuffled out to give the order. Now this doctor was an ignorant dog, whom I had been forced to exclude from the house because he went about proclaiming his belief in a saving God. At the same time that he proclaimed himself a man of science, he, I was resolved, should never cross my threshold, and I followed Mrs. Pebble through the house, screaming out prohibition. But I did not even catch a groan from her, not a nod of the head nor cast of the eye to show that she had heard. I met the doctor at the door of the library. Well, I sneered, throwing my hand in his face. Have you come to teach me some new prayers? He brushed past me as if he had not felt the blow and knelt down by the sofa. Rupture of a vessel on the brain, I think, he says to Somes and Mrs. Pebble after a short moment. He has been dead some hours, poor fellow. You had better telegraph for his sister, and I will send up the undertaker to arrange the body. You liar, I yelled, you whining liar! Have you the insolence to tell my servants that I am dead? When you see me here face to face? He was far in the passage with Somes and Mrs. Pebble at his heels ere I had ended, and not one of the three turned round. All that night I sat in the library. Strangely enough I had no wish to sleep, nor during the time that followed had I any craving to eat. In the morning the men came, and although I ordered them out, they proceeded to minister about something I could not see. So all day I stayed in the library or wandered about the house, and at night the men came again bringing with them a coffin. Then, in my humour, thinking it's shame that so fine a coffin should be empty, I lay the night in it and slept a soft, dreamless sleep, the softest sleep I have ever slept. And when the men came the next day I rested still, and the undertaker shaved me a strange ballet. On the evening after that I was coming downstairs when I noted some luggage in the hall and so learned that my sister had arrived. I had not seen this woman since her marriage, and I loathed her more than I loathed any creature in this ill-organised world. She was very beautiful, I think, tall and dark and straight as a ramrod, and she had an unruly passion for scandal and dress. I suppose the reason I disliked her so intensely was that she had a habit of making one aware of her presence when she was several yards off. At half past nine o'clock my sister came down to the library in a very charming wrap, and I soon found that she was as insensible to my presence as the others. I trembled with rage to see her kneel down by the coffin, my coffin, but when she had been over to kiss the pillow I threw away control. A knife which had been used to cut string was laying upon a table. I seized it and drove it into her neck. She fled from the room screaming, "'Come, come!' she cried, her voice quivering with anguish. The corpse is bleeding from the nose!' Then I cursed her. On the evening of the third day there was a heavy fall of snow. About eleven o'clock I observed that the house was filled with blacks and mutes and folk of the country who came for the obsequies. I went into the library and sat still and waited. Soon came the men, and they closed the lid of the coffin and bore it out on their shoulders. And yet I sat, feeling rather sadly that something of mine had been taken away. I could not quite think what. For half an hour perhaps, dreaming, dreaming. And then I glided to the hall door. There was no trace left of the funeral, but after a while I sighted a black thread winding slowly across the white plain. I am not dead. I moaned and rubbed my face in the pure snow and tossed it on my neck and hair. Sweet God, I am not dead. End of When I Was Dead.