The Boarded Window

In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, there was a vast and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely populated by restless people living on the frontier that made fairly acceptable homes out of the wilderness and became prosperous. They then left everything and pushed further west, to meet new dangers and suffering in the effort to regain the comforts which they had inexplicably given up.

Many of them had already left that region for remoter areas, but one who had arrived there early decided to stay on. He lived alone in a wooden house surrounded on all sides by the great forest. He seemed a part of its gloom and silence for no-one had ever seen him smile or speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale of wild animals' skins in the river town, because he grew nothing on the land. There was evidence of 'improvement' – a little ground immediately around the house had once been cleared of its trees, but their roots were now half hidden by new plants that had taken their place. Apparently the man's interest in agriculture had died.

The little house, with its wooden chimney, had a single door and, directly opposite, a window. The window, however, was boarded up - nobody could remember a time when it was not. And no-one knew why it was closed; certainly not because of the man's dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter passed that lonely place, the recluse had been seen sunning himself on his doorstep. I imagine few people living today ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as you will see.

The man's name was said to be Murlock. He looked seventy years old, but was actually about fifty. Something besides years had aged him. His hair and long, full beard were white, his grey eyes were blank, his face particularly wrinkled. He was tall and thin, with a stoop – a man used to carrying heavy loads. I never saw him though. I got this description from my grandfather, who also told me the man's story when I was a lad. He had known him when living nearby in those early days.

One day, Murlock was found in his home, dead. It was not the time or place for official enquiries. I suppose it was agreed that he had died of natural causes or I would have been told and would remember. I only know that the body was buried near the house, alongside the grave of his wife, who had died so many years before him that her existence had been wiped from local memory. That closes the final chapter of this true story. But there is an earlier chapter supplied by my grandfather.

When Murlock built his cottage and began to cut out a farm with his axe, he was young, strong and full of hope. He had married in the eastern country where he came from, a young woman, who shared his dangers and sufferings with a light heart. There is no record of her name, her character or appearance.

One day, Murlock returned from hunting in a distant part of the forest to find his wife sick with fever and delirious. There was no doctor within miles, no neighbour. She was too sick to be left. So he tried nursing her back to health, but at the end of the third day she died, apparently, without her reason ever returning.

From what we know of a character like his we can, perhaps, fill in some of the details of the picture drawn by my grandfather. When convinced that she was dead, Murlock remembered that the dead must be prepared for burial. Although he tried to do this, he made mistakes now and again and did certain things incorrectly. His occasional failures to complete this simple task filled him with astonishment. He was surprised, too, that he did not cry – surprised and a little ashamed. Surely it is unkind not to cry for the dead.

"Tomorrow," he said aloud, "I'll have to make the coffin and dig the grave and then I'll miss her, when she is no longer in sight. But now – she is dead, of course, but it's all right – it must be all right, somehow. Things cannot be so bad as they seem."

He stood over the body in the fading light, brushing her hair and putting the finishing touches to the body, doing everything mechanically. And he still had a belief that everything was right - that he should have her again like before. He'd had no experience of grief. His heart could not contain it all. He did not know he was so hard hit; that knowledge would come later and never go away. Grief is as various as the sounds made by different musical instruments. To one it comes like an arrow; to another like a violent blow.

We may imagine Murlock affected in that way, because as soon as he had finished his work, falling into a chair by the side of the table where the body lay and noting how white it looked in the gloom, he laid his arms on the table's edge and dropped his face onto them, tearless and unspeakably tired. At that moment came a long, crying sound like a child lost in the darkening woods! But the man did not move. Again, and nearer than before, that unearthly cry came. Perhaps it was an animal; perhaps it was a dream. Because Murlock was asleep.

Some hours later, as it seemed afterwards, he woke up and, lifting his head from his arms, listened intently – he did not know why. There in the black darkness by the side of the dead, remembering everything without a shock, he strained his eyes to see – he did not know what. His senses were alert, he stopped breathing, even his blood slowed to protect the silence. Who - what had woken him and where was it?

Suddenly the table shook beneath his arms and, at the same moment, he heard (or imagined he heard) a light, soft step like bare feet on the floor!

He was too terrified to cry out or move. He waited - waited there in the darkness through seeming centuries of terror. In vain, he tried to say the dead woman's name, to put out his hand across the table to learn if she was there. Then something dreadful happened. Some heavy body seemed thrown against the table with a force that pushed it against his chest so suddenly that it almost threw him over and, at the same moment, he heard and felt the fall of something on the floor with a noise so violent that the whole house was shaken by it. It seemed like a struggle followed and a confusion of sounds impossible to describe. Murlock had got to his feet. He threw his hands on the table. Nothing was there!

There's a point when fright may turn to madness; and madness pushes us to action. With no definite purpose, for no reason except the impulse of a madman, Murlock jumped to the wall, seized his rifle and, without aiming, fired it. By the flash which lit up the room, he saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman towards the window, its teeth in her throat! Then there was darkness blacker than before and silence. And when he woke again the sun was high and the forest noisy with birds' songs.

The body lay near the window, where the big cat had left it when frightened away by the flash and noise of the rifle. Her clothing was pulled away, her long hair was untidy, the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, terribly wounded, a pool of blood (not yet entirely dried) had collected. The ribbon he had tied her wrists with was broken. Between the teeth was a part of the animal's ear bitten off.