It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit!
I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us!
The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter—all round was solitary. I didn’t fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there.
Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself—‘I’ll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I’ll think it is this north wind that chills me ; and if she be motionless, it is sleep.’
I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might—it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from someone above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. ‘If I can only get this off,’ I muttered, ‘I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!’ and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb. I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me: it remained while I refilled the grave, and led me home.
You may laugh, if you will; but I was sure I should see her there. I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her.