He threw aside his
pen and cast the discordant record of past foolish pastime into the dead
ashes of the hearth.
How quiet it was. With the cessation of the rain the wind too had gone
down, and scarcely a breath of air came through the open door. He walked
to the threshold and gazed on the hushed prospect. In this listless
attitude he was faintly conscious of a distant reverberation, a mere
phantom of sound--perhaps the explosion of a distant blast in the
hills--that left the silence more marked and oppressive. As he turned
again into the cabin a change seemed to have come over it. It already
looked old and decayed. The loneliness of years of desertion seemed to
have taken possession of it; the atmosphere of dry rot was in the
beams and rafters. To his excited fancy the few disordered blankets
and articles of clothing seemed dropping to pieces; in one of the bunks
there was a hideous resemblance in the longitudinal heap of clothing to
a withered and mummied corpse. So it might look in after years when some
passing stranger--but he stopped.
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