A STRANGE EXPERIENCE 385 



was upon us — its first symptoms being, as usual, 

 untuneful drinking-songs bawled out at "closing 

 time" on Sunday evenings. 



One night we had gone to bed as usual. Equally 

 as usual our bedroom window was open at the 

 top, and the door closed but not locked. We were 

 just dropping off to sleep, when — at our — door — 1 

 heard a noise ! 



I have endeavoured since to describe that sound, 

 but always felt myself brought up, as the sailors 

 say, by the difficulty of finding the words to do so. 

 In tone it was merely a sort of bellow — something 

 between that of a calf and that of a rutting stag. 

 But it was the expression that gave the sound it& 

 unearthly character. There was something about it 

 so uncanny, and, moreover, when it was louder, so- 

 menacing, that it is impossible to compare it to any 

 sound of everyday life. I am now speaking of it by 

 the experience of frequent repetition ; and I think T 

 need hardly produce stronger evidence of the effect 

 it had upon me — a middle-aged, prosaic man, ignorant 

 of the meaning of the word " nerves," — than that I 

 have never since heard a similar sound without a 

 throb of the heart, followed by the glad feeling, 

 " That is not the sound." ^ 



To return, however, to this first feeling. 



"What was that?" exclaimed my wife, start- 

 ing up. 



"I don't know," I replied ; and just then the sound 

 was repeated, and I hastily struck a light. 



^ I have since found it exactly described in print : " The sound was 

 so fierce, so cruel, so ugly, so like a bull's roar, and withal so like a 

 human voice, and yet like neither of them." — Nathaniel Hawthorne, in 

 Tanglewood Tales. 



2 B 



