He would not feel alone then . But that night Mr. Meredith had been summoned to the fishing village at the harbour mouth to see a dying man . He would not likely be back until after midnight . Carl must dree his weird alone . A Glen man went past carrying a lantern . The mysterious shadows caused by the lantern-light went hurtling madly over the graveyard like a dance of demons or witches . Then they passed and darkness fell again . One by one the lights in the Glen went out . It was a very dark night , with a cloudy sky , and a raw east wind that was cold in spite of the calendar . Far away on the horizon was the low dim lustre of the Charlottetown lights . The wind wailed and sighed in the old fir-trees . Mr. Alec Davis ' tall monument gleamed whitely through the gloom . The willow beside it tossed long , writhing arms spectrally . At times , the gyrations of its boughs made it seem as if the monument were moving , too . Carl curled himself up on the tombstone with his legs tucked under him . It was n't precisely pleasant to hang them over the edge of the stone . Just suppose -- just suppose -- bony hands should reach up out of Mr. Pollock 's grave under it and clutch him by the ankles . That had been one of Mary Vance 's cheerful speculations one time when they had all been sitting there . It returned to haunt Carl now . He did n't believe those things ; he did n't even really believe in Henry Warren 's ghost .
As for Mr. XXXXX , he had been dead sixty years , so it was n't likely he cared who sat on his tombstone now .
Carl Charlottetown Davis Meredith Pollock Vance Warren harbour midnight night