He stretched out his
arm to seize the projecting arris of a larger block than ordinary,
and so help himself up, when his hand lighted plump upon a
substance differing in the greatest possible degree from what he
had expected to seize--hard stone. It was stringy and entangled,
and trailed upon the stone. The deep shadow from the aisle wall
prevented his seeing anything here distinctly, and he began
guessing as a necessity. 'It is a tressy species of moss or
lichen,' he said to himself.
But it lay loosely over the stone.
'It is a tuft of grass,' he said.
But it lacked the roughness and humidity of the finest grass.
'It is a mason's whitewash-brush.'
Such brushes, he remembered, were more bristly; and however much
used in repairing a structure, would not be required in pulling
one down.
He said, 'It must be a thready silk fringe.'
He felt further in. It was somewhat warm. Knight instantly felt
somewhat cold.
To find the coldness of inanimate matter where you expect warmth
is startling enough; but a colder temperature than that of the
body being rather the rule than the exception in common
substances, it hardly conveys such a shock to the system as
finding warmth where utter frigidity is anticipated.
'God only knows what it is,' he said.
He felt further, and in the course of a minute put his hand upon a
human head. The head was warm, but motionless. The thready mass
was the hair of the head--long and straggling, showing that the
head was a woman's.
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