The Suitor

Paper #2

Paper #2 – I went for an evening stroll for I was certainly in need of clean air. I went as far as to the lake where I chanced to see a wonderful sight. The early night sky was not quite as dark as one would think, and the moon was out. It reflected most amiably on the water surface and I was simply enthralled. I sat down on the river bank to see more of the water’s captivating silver shimmer. It was a lovely sight! It began to get darker and I decided that it was best not to linger, I got up to leave the lake when something very queer happened. You may think that as a writer of fiction, that what I write next may be the product of an overactive imagination, I daresay what dreadful things others will theorise when they learn she was also a young woman. What happened next was most frightful. I had observed, as I had sat on the river bank, certain small birds had begun to nestle in the trees encircling the lake and they chirped their discourse as birds may. Initially I had found it very serene but as it grew darker, I observed great flocks of these same small birds came to nest, so many more that they verily lined each tree top in regimental formations.

Secondly, as it grew darker I noticed or rather I heard these very same small birds begin to sing a most dreadful song, a cacophony of dreadfulness one might say. I covered my ears as they squawked such shrill shrieking notes. It was maddening. I should have had the sense to leave right then but I had gotten a taste for the spectacle which was unfolding in front of me and I stayed despite the chorus of noisome birds. I tell you, one would not think such small birds could produce such starkly terrible cords! Still they rose ever higher in pitch and volume so much so that I feared I might go deaf. I was about to scream when suddenly I became aware of a new sound which was barely audible over the nightmare cacophony; it was a splash. As if something had just then dived into the lake from the opposite end, it was by now; too dark to discern what exactly had caused it but whatever it was it had sent those small birds flying. They flew eagerly upwards as if there were some morsel that had just shot through the air, and they began to viciously fight one another before one of the birds outmanoeuvred the rest and took to the front of their ragged formation and sped away to the south. The others followed it, chirping excitedly.

Seeing those strange birds behave in such a way had unnerved me. I did not know why, I concluded that their behaviour must have been some kind of migration ritual and consoled myself by endeavouring to consult my father’s books on the species of birds in the library at my earliest convenience. As I turned to make my way back to the manor house, I did perceive that, for only the briefest of moments, I saw a shadowy figure upon the moors some yards away from myself with its back towards me moving in the direction of the manor house. I believe I was overtired and imagining things for when I blinked there was nothing but moorland in the night. How those silly little birds had rattled my nerves!