"It has waited long," said she, "for the hand that should rightfully put it into the lock, and let light and hope once more into the old house. I thank the Lord that I live to see the day."
Bergan was too much touched to answer. He walked quickly to the front of the deserted mansion, cut the vines from the door, and put the key in the lock. At first, it opposed a stubborn resistance to his efforts; then, suddenly, the bolt yielded, the door turned slowly on its long-unused hinges, and he stood, with a beating heart, in his ancestral hall.
He was met by a swift gust of wind, so chill and vault-like, and hurrying past him with so woful a sigh, that it seemed like the rush of innumerable imprisoned ghosts, eagerly seizing upon the opportunity for escape. Involuntarily letting go the door, it fell to behind him with a clangor that reverberated loudly, for a moment, through the house, and then suddenly ceased, as if smothered in some remote corner by a lurking hand. The silence which followed was dreary and oppressive,--all the more, because Bergan, coming so suddenly from the outward sunshine, was altogether bedimmed by such density of gloom as brooded within, most of the windows being either darkened by blinds, or closed with heavy opaque shutters. For a single instant, he felt a thrill of unreasoning horror. The impenetrable gloom, the oppressive stillness, the damp, dead air (which might have come straight from the open mouth of a tomb), gave him a chill impression that he had committed sacrilege.
Quickly recovering himself, however, he again flung wide open the door, and fastened it back. By the light thus admitted, he easily found his way to a window at the other end of the hall, which he also opened. There was an immediate inward rush, not only of the sunny daylight, but of the sweet, warm air of the autumn afternoon, with its inevitable suggestions of tranquil sea, and tender sky, and slow-waving forest; quickly penetrating, he felt sure, to the uppermost corner of the long-deserted dwelling, and scattering everywhere some healthful, purifying, enlivening influence.
He could now see that he stood in a wide and lofty entrance-hall, decorated with a profusion of carved woodwork; panels, cornices, and casements, being ornamented with garlands of oaken roses, or quaint heads of animals, stiff as petrifactions, and almost ebon-black with time and rubbing. The furniture consisted of a small table, a cumbrous cabinet, and ponderous, high-backed chairs, of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, brought from England, as heir-looms, by the first emigrant Bergan. There was also a tall, spectral clock, which, to Bergan's intense astonishment, suddenly began to fill the hall with a loud, monotonous tick, as if the march of time, long ago arrested in the deserted mansion, was now duly resumed:--doubtless the rusty wheels had been jarred into spasmodic motion by the violent closing of the door. By way of decoration, there were a few dingy pictures, in dark, carved frames; and in two of the oaken panels hung complete suits of armor,--helmets, cuirasses, gorgets, greaves, and gauntlets,--memorials, not only of long-buried Bergans, but of long-vanished days.