CHAPTER II.  A Murderer’s Wake and the Arrival of a Stranger

It is the month of June, and the sun has gone down amidst a mass of those red and angry clouds which prognosticate a night of storm and tempest.  The air is felt to be oppressive and sultry, and the whole sky is overshadowed with gloom.  On such a night the spirit sinks, cheerfulness abandons the heart, and an indefinable anxiety depresses it.  This impression is not peculiar to man, who, on such occasions, is only subject to the same instinctive apprehension which is known to influence the irrational animals.  The clouds are gathering in black masses; but there is, nevertheless, no opening between them through which the sky is visible.  The gloom is unbroken, and so is the silence; and a person might imagine that the great operations of Nature had been suspended and stood still.  The outlying cattle betake them to shelter, and the very dogs, with a subdued and timid bark, seek the hearth, and, with ears and tail hanging in terror, lay themselves down upon it as if to ask protection from man.  On such a night as this we will request the reader to follow us toward a district that trenches upon the foot of a dark mountain, from whose precipitous sides masses of gray rock, apparently embedded in heath and fern, protrude themselves in uncouth and gigantic shapes.  ’Tis true they were not then visible; but we wish the reader to understand the character of the whole scenery through which we pass.  We diverge from the highway into a mountain road, which resembles the body of a serpent when in motion, going literally up one elevation, and down another.  To the right, deep glens, gullies, and ravines; but the darkness with which they are now filled is thick and impervious to the eye, and nothing breaks the silence about us but the rush of the mountain torrent over some jutting precipice below us.  To the left all is gloom, as it would be even were there light to guide the sight, because on that side spreads a black, interminable moor.  As it is we can see nothing; yet as we get along we find that we are not alone.  Voices reach our ears; but they are not, as usual, the voices of mirth and laughter.  These which we hear—­and they are not far from us—­are grave and serious; the utterance thick and low, as if those from whom they proceed were expressing a sense of sympathy or horror.  We have now advanced up this rugged path about half a mile from the highway we have mentioned, and discovered a light which will guide us to our destination.  As we approach the house the people are increasing in point of numbers; but still their conversation is marked by the same strange and peculiar character.  Perhaps the solemn depth of their voices gains something by the ominous aspect of the sky; but, be this as it may, the feeling which it occasions fills one with a different and distinct sense of discomfort.