{"product_id":"2940013740310","title":"A Silent Witness","description":"THE history upon which I am now embarking abounds in incidents so amazing\u003cbr\u003ethat, as I look back on them, a something approaching to scepticism\u003cbr\u003econtends with my vivid recollections and makes me feel almost apologetic\u003cbr\u003ein laying them before the reader. Some of them indeed are so out of\u003cbr\u003echaracter with the workaday life in which they happened that they will\u003cbr\u003eappear almost incredible; but none is more fraught with mystery than the\u003cbr\u003eexperience that befell me on a certain September night in the last year\u003cbr\u003eof my studentship and ushered in the rest of the astounding sequence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was past eleven o'clock when I let myself out of my lodgings at Gospel\u003cbr\u003eOak; a dark night, cloudy and warm and rather inclined to rain. But,\u003cbr\u003edespite the rather unfavourable aspect of the weather, I turned my steps\u003cbr\u003eaway from the town, and walking briskly up the Highgate Road, presently\u003cbr\u003eturned into Millfield Lane. This was my favourite walk and the pretty\u003cbr\u003ewinding lane, meandering so pleasantly from Lower Highgate to the heights\u003cbr\u003eof Hampstead, was familiar to me under all its aspects.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn sweet summer mornings when the cuckoos called from the depths of Ken\u003cbr\u003eWood, when the path was spangled with golden sunlight, and saucy\u003cbr\u003esquirrels played hide and seek in the shadows under the elms (though the\u003cbr\u003eplace was within earshot of Westminster and within sight of the dome of\u003cbr\u003eSt. Paul's); on winter days when the Heath wore its mantle of white and\u003cbr\u003ethe ring of gliding steel came up from the skaters on the pond below; on\u003cbr\u003eAugust evenings, when I would come suddenly on sequestered lovers (to our\u003cbr\u003emutual embarrassment) and hurry by with ill-feigned unconsciousness. I\u003cbr\u003eknew all its phases and loved them all. Even its name was delightful,\u003cbr\u003ecarrying the mind back to those more rustic days when the wits\u003cbr\u003eforegathered at the Old Flask Tavern and John Constable tramped through\u003cbr\u003ethis very lane with his colour-box slung over his shoulder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was very dark after I had passed the lamp at the entrance to the lane.\u003cbr\u003eVery silent and solitary too. Not a soul was stirring at this hour, for\u003cbr\u003ethe last of the lovers had long since gone home and the place was little\u003cbr\u003efrequented even in the daytime. The elms brooded over the road, shrouding\u003cbr\u003eit in shadows of palpable black, and their leaves whispered secretly in\u003cbr\u003ethe soft night breeze. But the darkness, the quiet and the solitude were\u003cbr\u003erestful after the long hours of study and the glare of the printed page,\u003cbr\u003eand I strolled on past the ghostly pond and the little thatched cottage,\u003cbr\u003enow wrapped in silence and darkness, with a certain wistful regret that I\u003cbr\u003emust soon look my last on them. For I had now passed all my examinations\u003cbr\u003ebut the final \"Fellowship,\" and must soon be starting my professional\u003cbr\u003ecareer in earnest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePresently a light rain began to fall. Foreseeing that I should have to\u003cbr\u003ecurtail my walk, I stepped forward more briskly, and, passing between the\u003cbr\u003eposts, entered the narrowest and most secluded part of the lane. But now\u003cbr\u003ethe rain suddenly increased, and a squall of wind drove it athwart the\u003cbr\u003epath. I drew up in the shelter of one of the tall oak fences by which the\u003cbr\u003elane is here inclosed, and waited for the shower to pass. And as I stood\u003cbr\u003ewith my back to the fence, pensively filling my pipe, I became for the\u003cbr\u003efirst time sensible of the utter solitude of the place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI looked about me and listened. The lane was darker here than elsewhere;\u003cbr\u003ea mere trench between the high fences. I could dimly see the posts at the\u003cbr\u003eentrance and a group of large elms over-shadowing them. In the other\u003cbr\u003edirection, where the lane doubled sharply upon itself, was absolute, inky\u003cbr\u003eblackness, save where a faint glimmer from the wet ground showed the\u003cbr\u003ecorner of the fence and a projecting stump or tree-root jutting out from\u003cbr\u003ethe corner and looking curiously like a human foot with the toes pointed\u003cbr\u003eupward.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe rain fell steadily with a soft, continuous murmur; the leaves of the\u003cbr\u003eelm-trees whispered together and answered the falling rain. The Scotch\u003cbr\u003epines above my head stirred in the breeze with a sound like the surge of\u003cbr\u003ethe distant sea. The voices of Nature, hushed and solemn, oblivious of\u003cbr\u003eman like the voices of the wilderness; and over all and through all, a\u003cbr\u003eprofound, enveloping silence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI drew up closer to the fence and shivered slightly, for the night was\u003cbr\u003egrowing chill. It seemed a little lighter now in the narrow, trench-like\u003cbr\u003elane; not that the sky was less murky but because the ground was now\u003cbr\u003eflooded with water. The posts stood out less vaguely against the\u003cbr\u003ebackground of wet road, and the odd-looking stump by the corner was\u003cbr\u003ealmost distinct. And again it struck me as looking curiously like a\u003cbr\u003efoot--a booted foot with the toe pointing upwards.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070205280496,"sku":"2940013740310","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740310_p0.jpg?v=1763589607","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740310","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}