He poured himself some water and
drank it, but thought it did not taste nice. Then he turned to the
window, and looked out.
The house was in a large park. Its few trees served mainly to show how
wide the unbroken spaces of grass. Before the house, motionless as a
statue, stood a great gray horse with hanging neck, his shadow stretched
in mighty grotesque behind him, and on his back the very effigy of my
uncle, motionless too as marble. The horse stood sidewise to the house,
but the face of his rider was turned toward it, as if scanning its
windows in the dying glitter of the moon. John thought he heard a cry
somewhere, and went to his door, but, listening hard, heard nothing. When
he looked again from the window, the apparition seemed fainter, and
farther away, though neither horse nor rider had changed posture. He
rubbed his eyes to see more plainly, could no longer distinguish the
appearance, and went back to bed. In the morning he was in a high
fever--unconscious save of restless discomfort and undefined trouble.
He learned afterward from the housekeeper, that his mother herself nursed
him, but he would take neither food nor medicine from her hand. No doctor
was sent for. John thought, and I cannot but think, that the water in his
bottle had to do with the sudden illness. His mother may have merely
wished to prevent him from coming to me; but, for the time at least, the
conviction had got possession of him, that she was attempting his life.
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