 | Twice-told tales |  |
THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE
HILLS.
THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE
HILLS.
In those strange old times, when fantastic dreams
and madmen's reveries were realized among the actual
circumstances of life, two persons met together at an
appointed hour and place. One was a lady, graceful
in form and fair of feature, though pale and troubled,
and smitten with an untimely blight in what should
have been the fullest bloom of her years; the other
was an ancient and meanly dressed woman, of ill-favored
aspect, and so withered, shrunken and decrepit,
that even the space since she began to decay must
have exceeded the ordinary term of human existence.
In the spot where they encountered, no mortal could
observe them. Three little hills stood near each other,
and down in the midst of them sunk a hollow basin,
almost mathematically circular, two or three hundred
feet in breadth, and of such depth that a stately cedar
were numerous upon the hills, and partly fringed the
outer verge of the intermediate hollow; within which
there was nothing but the brown grass of October, and
here and there a tree-trunk, that had fallen long ago,
and lay mouldering with no green successor from its
roots. One of these masses of decaying wood, formerly
a majestic oak, rested close beside a pool of
green and sluggish water at the bottom of the basin.
Such scenes as this (so gray tradition tells) were once
the resort of a Power of Evil and his plighted subjects;
and here, at midnight or on the dim verge of
evening, they were said to stand round the mantling
pool, disturbing its putrid waters in the performance
of an impious baptismal rite. The chill beauty of an
autumnal sunset was now gilding the three hill-tops,
whence a paler tint stole down their sides into the
hollow.
`Here is our pleasant meeting come to pass,' said
the aged crone, `according as thou hast desired. Say
quickly what thou wouldst have of me, for there is but
a short hour that we may tarry here.'
As the old withered woman spoke, a smile glimmered
on her countenance, like lamplight on the wall of
a sepulchre. The lady trembled, and cast her eyes
upward to the verge of the basin, as if meditating to
return with her purpose unaccomplished. But it was
not so ordained.
`I am stranger in this land, as you know,' said she
have left those behind me with whom my fate was
intimately bound, and from whom I am cut off for ever.
There is a weight in my bosom that I cannot away
with, and I have come hither to inquire of their welfare.'
`And who is there by this green pool, that can
bring thee news from the ends of the Earth?' cried
the old woman, peering into the lady's face. `Not
from my lips mayst thou hear these tidings; yet, be
thou bold, and the daylight shall not pass away from
yonder hill-top, before thy wish be granted.'
`I will do your bidding though I die,' replied the
lady desperately.
The old woman seated herself on the trunk of the
fallen tree, threw aside the hood that shrouded her
gray locks, and beckoned her companion to draw near.
`Kneel down,' she said, `and lay your forehead on
my knees.'
She hesitated a moment, but the anxiety, that had
long been kindling, burned fiercely up within her. As
she knelt down, the border of her garment was dipped
into the pool; she laid her forehead on the old
woman's knees, and the latter drew a cloak about the
lady's face, so that she was in darkness. Then she
heard the muttered words of a prayer, in the midst of
which she started, and would have arisen.
`Let me flee,—let me flee and hide myself, that they
may not look upon me!' she cried. But, with returning
death.
For it seemed as if other voices,—familiar in infancy,
and unforgotten through many wanderings, and in
all the vicissitudes of her heart and fortune—were
mingling with the accents of the prayer. At first the
words were faint and indistinct, not rendered so by
distance, but rather resembling the dim pages of a
book, which we strive to read by an imperfect and
gradually brightening light. In such a manner, as the
prayer proceeded, did those voices strengthen upon
the ear; till at length the petition ended, and the conversation
of an aged man, and of a woman broken and
decayed like himself, became distinctly audible to the
lady as she knelt. But those strangers appeared not
to stand in the hollow depth between the three hills.
Their voices were encompassed and re-echoed by the
walls of a chamber, the windows of which were rattling
in the breeze; the regular vibration of a clock, the
crackling of a fire, and the tinkling of the embers as
they fell among the ashes, rendred the scene almost
as vivid as if painted to the eye. By a melancholy
hearth sat these two old people, the man calmly despondent,
the woman querulous and tearful, and their
words were all of sorrow. They spoke of a daughter,
a wanderer they knew not where, bearing dishonor
along with her, and leaving shame and affliction to
bring their gray heads to the grave. They alluded
also to other and more recent woe, but in the midst of
of the wind sweeping mournfully among the autumn
leaves; and when the lady lifted her eyes, there was
she kneeling in the hollow between three hills.
`A weary and lonesome time yonder old couple
have of it,' remarked the old woman, smiling in the
lady's face.
`And did you also hear them!' exclaimed she, a
sense of intolerable humiliation triumphing over her
agony and fear.
`Yea; and we have yet more to hear,' replied the
old woman. `Wherefore, cover thy face quickly.'
Again the withered hag poured forth the monotonous
words of a prayer that was not meant to be
acceptable in Heaven; and soon, in the pauses of her
breath, strange murmurings began to thicken, gradually
increasing so as to drown and overpower the
charm by which they grew. Shrieks pierced through
the obscurity of sound, and were succeeded by the
singing of sweet female voices, which in their turn
gave way to a wild roar of laughter, broken suddenly
by groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly
confusion of terror and mourning and mirth. Chains
were rattling, fierce and stern voices uttered threats,
and the scourge resounded at their command. All
these noises deepened and became substantial to the
listener's ear, till she could distinguish every soft and
dreamy accent of the love songs, that died causelessly
into funeral hymns. She shuddered at the unprovoked
of flame, and she grew faint at the fearful merriment,
raging miserably around her. In the midst of this
wild scene, where unbound passions jostled each other
in a drunken career, there was one solemn voice of a
man, and a manly and melodious voice it might once
have been. He went to-and-fro continually, and his
feet sounded upon the floor. In each member of that
frenzied company, whose own burning thoughts had
become their exclusive world, he sought an auditor for
the story of his individual wrong, and interpreted their
laughter and tears as his reward of scorn or pity. He
spoke of woman's perfidy, of a wife who had broken
her holiest vows, of a home and heart made desolate.
Even as he went on, the shout, the laugh, the shriek,
the sob, rose up in unison, till they changed into the
hollow, fitful, and uneven sound of the wind, as it
fought among the pine trees on those three lonely hills.
The lady looked up, and there was the withered
woman smiling in her face.
`Couldst thou have thought there were such merry
times in a Mad House?' inquired the latter.
`True, true,' said the lady to herself; `there is
mirth within its walls, but misery, misery without.'
`Wouldst thou hear more?' demanded the old
woman.
`There is one other voice I would fain listen to
again,' replied the lady faintly.
Then lay down thy head speedily upon my knees,
past.'
The golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon
the hills, but deep shades obscured the hollow and the
pool, as if sombre night were rising thence to overspread
the world. Again that evil woman began to
weave her spell. Long did it proceed unanswered, till
the knolling of a bell stole in among the intervals of
her words, like a clang that had travelled far over
valley and rising ground, and was just ready to die in
the air. The lady shook upon her companion's knees,
as she heard that boding sound. Stronger it grew and
sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death-bell,
knolling dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower, and
bearing tidings of mortality and woe to the cottage, to
the hall, and to the solitary wayfarer, that all might
weep for the doom appointed in turn to them. Then
came a measured tread, passing slowly, slowly on, as
of mourners with a coffin, their garments trailing on
the ground, so that the ear could measure the length
of their melancholy array. Before them went the
priest, reading the burial-service, while the leaves of
his book were rustling in the breeze. And though
no voice but his was heard to speak aloud, still there
were revilings and anathemas, whispered but distinct,
from women and from men, breathed against the
daughter who had wrung the aged hearts of her parents,—the
wife who had betrayed the trusting fondness
of her husband,—the mother who had sinned
The sweeping sound of the funeral train faded away
like a thin vapor, and the wind, that just before had
seemed to shake the coffin-pall, moaned sadly round
the verge of the Hollow between three Hills. But
when the old woman stirred the kneeling lady, she
lifted not her head.
`Here has been a sweet hour's sport!' said the
withered crone, chuckling to herself.
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