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Weed-grown fields, desolate towns, the wild approach of riderless horses had now become habitual to my eyes; nay, sights far worse, of the unburied dead, and human forms which were strewed on the road side, and on the steps of once frequented habitations, where, Through the flesh that wastes away Beneath the parching sun, the whitening bones Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust.
Farther on there came a weed-grown field or two, then a row of operatives' houses, the showy gables of the "Eldorado" road-house the only building in Westmore on which fresh paint was freely lavished then the company "store," the machine shops and other out-buildings, the vast forbidding bulk of the factories looming above the river-bend, and the sudden neatness of the manager's turf and privet hedges.
"I'll volunteer first," said the Doctor, "and if there's anything worth seeing beyond, I'll come for you." It was, as I said, a thin wall of granite, which ran out from the rest of the hill, seaward, and was pierced by a tall arch; the blocks which had formerly filled the void now lay weed-grown, half buried in sand, forming a slippery threshold. Over these the Doctor climbed and looked beyond.
The gang made forays into the gardens of old maids or went down to the castle and fought a battle on the shaggy weed-grown rocks, coming home after it weary stragglers with the stale odours of the foreshore in their nostrils and the rank oils of the seawrack upon their hands and in their hair.
The rusted gates between the crumbling heraldic pillars were folded back, and my uncle flicked the mares impatiently as we flew up the weed-grown avenue, until he pulled them on their haunches before the time-blotched steps. The front door was open, and Boy Jim was waiting there to meet us. But it was a different Boy Jim from him whom I had known and loved.
The disgracefully neglected state of the latter, its broken and ruinous enclosure, and its shaggy weed-grown graves, tell a strange story of the residents of this island, who are content to leave the resting-place of their dead in so shocking a condition.
The very appearance of the man told that, and those neglected, weed-grown fields were another proof. What was he here for, then? And Sallie! Lord, I could despise that Texas rough, but the snaky eyes of the woman made me shiver, and look about apprehensively. Then there was the dead man the dead man.
The little field between our seat and the mountain is all given up to weeds, with here and there a small oak-tree, and shut in by a hedge of oak saplings and low willows. I say weeds, but think not of an eastern weed-grown spot; imagine neither pigweed, smartweed, burdock, nor sorrel. Rather, picture in your mind a flower-bed, more rich and gay than ever met your admiring eyes.
The rest of the Carolina pack-men, trooping noisily past, averted their eyes from the darkened doors of the empty houses; the weed-grown spaces of the "beloved square," where once the ceremonies of state, the religious rites, the public games and dances were held; the council-house on its high mound, whence had been wont to issue the bland vapors of the pipe of peace or the far more significant smoke emitted from the cheera, the "sacred fire," which only the cheera-taghe, the fire-prophets, were permitted to kindle, and which was done with pomp and ceremony in the new year, when every spark of the last year's fire had been suffered to die out.
As Uncle George finished they reached the top of Academy Hill, where Miss Farwell saw the old school building ghostly and still in the mists that hung about it like a shroud, the tumble-down fence with the gap leading into the weed-grown yard, the grassy knoll and the oak all wet and sodden now, and below, the valley with its homes and fields hidden in the thick fog, suggestive of hidden and mysterious depths.
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