Page:Tales of the White Hills.djvu/46

40 &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk so, grandmother!&rdquo; said the girl, shuddering.

&ldquo;Now,&rdquo;&mdash;continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly,&mdash;&ldquo;I want one of you, my children&mdash;when your mother is dressed and in the coffin&mdash;I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take a glimpse at myself, and see whether all &rsquo;s right?&rdquo;

&ldquo;Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments,&rdquo; murmured the stranger youth. &ldquo;I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinking, and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean&mdash;that wide and nameless sepulchre?&rdquo;

For a moment, the old woman&rsquo;s ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers that a sound abroad in the night, rising like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep, and terrible, before the fated group were conscious of it. The house and all within it trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump. Young and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an instant, pale, affrighted, without utterance, or power to move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips,

&ldquo;The Slide! The Slide!&rdquo;

The simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the unutterable horror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed from their cottage, and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot&mdash;where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared. Alas! they had quitted their security, and fled right into the pathway of destruction. Down