Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 04 (1942-03).djvu/60

"I won't go near it!"

"You have to sleep," suggested Kirwan, still smiling. The others looked puzzled and frightened, but Edric looked dreadful. "I won't sleep!" he screamed. "I won't sleep!"

When they broke up, he was still muttering it.

 

At five o'clock in the morning, Kirwan sat up in bed. A look of anticipation, a listening look, was on his face, making it strangely unpleasant. His attic room was directly above Charley's large, airy bedroom; and sounds traveled upwards fairly plainly. An anomalous sound was reaching his ears now—a wet, squelchy, crawling sound. Suddenly, he heard a terrible cry.

As the sound of running feet, crying voices, and finally a dreadful scream from Auntie Martha, reached his ears, Kirwan turned over and went to sleep, smiling.

 

 

The Wood-Wife

By Leah Bodine Drake

In a hollow oak-tree I live by the wood, A bit more than human And much less than good. I've queer spells, potent spells, That I went to learn To the goat-hooved and shaggy ones Who hide in the fern. The good-wives, the house-wives, They shudder at my sin: But much they'd give to learn to weave Cloth of spiders'-spin! My pet fox, my russet fox, He ravishes their geese: Yet none dare call out the hounds If they would know peace!

On a day of falling leaves I met the young Squire. I gave him a sidelong look That set his face afire. The bonny young Squire, He dreams in a spell; But not of golden curlylocks Of Parson Jones' Nell— But of red hair, and green eyes That have looked on Hell! Dream, pretty Squire-kin! It's small use to bum! For when the moon is up The wood-wife will turn Three times widdershins, And greet where you stood The shagged-men, the satyr-men Who creep from the wood!