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had unjustly believed to be interested, and felt heartily ashamed that my fool-hardiness in braving such a storın had involved me in such a serious and apparently inextricable difficulty. We endeavoured by shouting with all our might to call some of the family to our assistance; but either the distance was too great, or our voices were drowned in the roaring of the tempest. In this disagreeable dilemma, I was compelled to mount the box, and in spite of the wind and the snow, and the impenetrable darkness, to despatch John across the fields to the house. He was gone, as it seemed to me, an hour, and then returned only to convert my anxiety into the mortifying certainty that the house was not a tavern; that we were fifteen miles at least from any inn; that we had taken the wrong road shortly after leaving the Two Bears, and that to crown our misfortunes the people of the house showed every possible inclination to exclude us from their roof. It was extremely disagreeable at this late hour to claim the reluctant hospitality of a private family, but unpleasant as it was, it was the only alternative. John, with the assistance of a lantern which he had brought with him, had now succeeded in finding the gate, and at the risk every instant of overturning the carriage, drove slowly down the lane, resolved at all events to gain admittance, at least, into the barn. Having reached with g . difficulty the end of the lane, I thought it would be well, fore I knocked, to reconnoitre the premises, which the light of the lantern enabled me, though imperfectly, to do. The house, which was a wretched unpainted wooden shell of two stories and a garret, seemed, even in this new country, already falling fast into decay. From a window in the second story was still streaming the light of the candle which had directed us to the spot. had not time, however, to make any exact observations, before the door opened, and a black girl, the same who had given John his information, made her appearance. I asked immediately to see her master or mistress, on which she stared strangely, closed the door, and vanished without making a reply. Shortly after, we heard the sound of steps descending from the garret, accompanied by the most unpromising and unpropitious mutterings. The door was now again opened, but kept nearly closed, and through the aperture glared the eyes of a white woman, who demanded in a very rough voice and strong Irish brogue, what we wanted. "Shelter for ourselves," I replied, with the accent of entreaty, "and food for our horses-nothing more." The woman now opened the door gradually, as if she suspected our intentions, and slowly surveying us both, still keeping all but her head carefully con

cealed, she told us to wait till she returned. There was much to surprise, though nothing to alarm me in all these precautions. Surely the tenants of so wretched a cabin had nothing to fear from one who was wealthy enough to travel in his coach. If I should be admitted, the guest would have far greater grounds for suspicion than the host, and yet, if I had carried on my forehead the highwayman's brand, more hesita tion could scarcely have been shown. After a very long de lay, during which I thought I could distinguish the voice of consultation in the lighted apartment, the woman returned, and silently and sullenly conducted us into a low narrow meanlooking room, in which was to be found neither chair, bed, nor table, nor indeed any article of furniture whatever. Unappalled at this discouraging reception, I ventured to ask if she could furnish us with something to eat, and begged to be indulged with the favour of a fire, declaring at the same time my readiness to make her a liberal compensation for her trouble. But the woman seemed quite as regardless of my offers of reward, as she had been of my appeal to her compassion. With a singular inflexibility of countenance, and doggedness of manner, she proceeded to make some arrangements for our convenience, apparently neither urged nor deterred by any thing I said. She sed, in all she did, to be literally obeying the directions of some other person, to whom, it was plain, we owed our admission. While she was engaged in blowing some wet faggots and refractory embers into temporary flame, I watched her from a distance unobserved. She was evidently Irish, about fifty years of age, and clad in the coarsest and dirtiest apparel imaginable. The fitful light, which she toiled long and laboriously to produce, threw a strange and ominous glare upon the harsh and rigid features of her face. She was leaning forward, supported on her hands and knees, with her face close upon the embers; and at every puff which she gave, the faggot sent forth a sudden and momentary flash, which illu mined for an instant her inauspicious buckskin-coloured visage, and lighted up her large bulging eyes into a singular expression of resolute malignity. Her hair, which was gray and inextricably tangled, streamed over her broad and naked shoulders, giving her an aspect of wild and most forbidding sybillism. The wetness of the wood damped the blaze as soon as she produced it, and the wind that roared down the enor mous chimney, every now and then, drove volumes of smoke against her face. Whenever this occurred, she drew back her. head and rubbed her eyes, with loud and angry curses, which 1 thought were intended to vent her spleen at my unseasonVol. II. No. I.

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able intrusion. Yet why should she complain? I had shown every disposition to be satisfied with her accommodations, wretched as they were, and she had besides been assured that she should be liberally rewarded for her trouble.

After having harassed the fuel into flame, my sullen hostess arose, and taking the lantern with her, left me to myself. My attention was now drawn to a circumstance which struck me as not a little extraordinary. The room in which I had observed the light, was directly above me, and I now heard the occupant, whoever he were, pacing backward and forward with a slow and deliberate stride. At another time, I should, in all probability, have taken no notice whatever of a circumstance apparently so trifling. But the gloominess of the weather and the loneliness of the place, had given to my nervous system, naturally very excitable, and debilitated very much by my recent disease, a degree of painful sensibility. The room above me was considerably larger than the one which I was in, as I plainly perceived by the distance to which I traced the steps of the person who was walking overhead. That the stranger was no ordinary personage I felt assured, for there was something so exact, so deliberate, so meditative in his tread, (I say it seriously,) that I could not for a moment suppose it proceeded from the clumsy limbs and thick shoes of an uneducated countryman. Nor could he be a benighted traveller like myself, for John who had now returned from the barn, assured me that there was no horse nor vehicle whatever there, other than my own. After walking for nearly an hour, with that slow and measured tread, and that peculiar creaking of the boot, which a traveller's ear distinguishes at once from the abrupt and downright tramp of the plebeian, I heard him open the door, and walk to the head of the staircase. He called to the black girl I mentioned before, "Caroline!" It was but a single word, and uttered, for aught I knew, for an indifferent purpose. Yet I heard it with the acutest interest; for I could plainly perceive, in his voice, the tone of habitual pensiveness and melancholy. The distinct ness and elegance with which each syllable of this simple word was pronounced, told me that the stranger was a man of education; the tone in which it was uttered convinced me he was unhappy. But what motive could possibly induce such a man to establish his permanent residence in a wretched hovel in these unfrequented wilds? The stranger called Caroline a second and a third time. She did not answer. He called again and again. Why need he do this? Why not descend the stair-case? Why was he afraid of encountering the

eyes of a stranger? He certainly knew of my accident and my being in the house, and I had every reason to suppose that my arrival in a part of the country rarely, if ever, visited by travellers, would at least have roused his curiosity to see and converse with me. But this man was not merely indifferent; he anxiously avoided me. Caroline finally went up to the head of the staircase, and a long conversation in whispers cusued. The stranger then returned to his room, locked the door, and traversed the floor with a hasty and agitated stride, and although I could not distinguish what he said, was evidently speaking to himself in a tone of painful and melancholy selfconsultation. There seemed to be here some enigma which I vainly endeavoured to solve. My hostess scarcely condescended to reply to any of my questions; and sat, while we were attempting to eat the wretched fare she set before us, silently squatted on a stool beneath the arch of the fire-place, doubling the number of her wrinkles with a frown of determined discontent. I attempted, in various ways, to soften her peevish severity, but every inquiry which I made with regard to my strange fellow lodger was effectually parried by the simple reply "Indeed, I can't tell ye, sir, indeed."

I need not say that this evasion only stimulated more and more my increasing curiosity. But as this, to all appearance, seemed a useless and a hopeless curiosity, I threw myself at last upon a couch, which John had prepared for me, with my cloak and some hay from the barn. I endeavoured to forget my impatience in the oblivion of sleep. But to sleep, I found was utterly impossible. The stranger continued to walk across the room, muttering to himself something which I could not understand. At one time I thought I could distinguish these words: "Good God! for what purpose were these afflictions sent upon us? Yet why all this delay and hesitation? I had better do it now. It must come out-it must come out at last. There is no other way!" These words seemed plainly to imply that the mind of the stranger was oppressed with the burden of some fearful secret, which he now was painfully resolv ing to divulge. Could this determination be connected with my arrival? I could scarcely believe it. He had not seen me, and no one here was acquainted with my name. Yet was it not possible that circumstances of which I might not be aware might render it proper or necessary that any stranger should be the depositary of his confidence? It must come out at last!" And to shun the dreadful consequences of inevitable detection, he was resolved to unfold the fearful mystery to me, whom he knew not, to solicit, perhaps, my assistance, or con

ciliate, at least, my compassion. It must come out at last!" Had the stranger then committed one of those foul deeds that

-rise,

Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.' And was it then the force of conscience, and the hope of pardon, which urged him to confess a crime he could not long conceal? This seemed a harsh interpretation; but did not every thing combine to strengthen my suspicions? The extreme reluctance with which I was admitted, the mysterious reserve of the woman who received me, the unwillingness shown by the stranger to descend, the peculiarly anxious tones of his voice, his restless and agitated gait, his soliloquy at an hour so untimely, and the few words I had just overheard, concurred to produce in my mind a vehement misgiving that all was not right, Still, when I reflected that the reserve of the woman might result from a natural moroseness, and that the language of affliction may sometimes be mistaken for the symptoms of remorse, I felt strong reasons to doubt of the truth of my surmises. I was losing myself thus, in a wilderness of the wildest conjecture, when it struck me at last, that my fellow lodger was probably deranged, and I felt vexed that I had perhaps been fruitlessly endeavouring to analyse the motives of a madman. Satisfied with this explananation, I was sinking into sleep, when suddenly I heard the most extraordinary sound with which ever mortal ears were assailed. My whole frame, even at this remote period, convulsively shudders at the recollection. It was a woman's cry, a cry of extreme debility and unutterable agony fearfully combined, and proceeded evidently from the room above. Feeble as it was, it was lengthened and swelled out into a horrible expression of intolerable anguish, The cry, that tells us that the pangs of the victim of hydrothorax are terminating in his death-the cry that issues from the lips of the mangled and exhausted wretch who lies writhing on the rack, when his dying breath is expended in the utterance-the cry that strikes into our souls, when the desperate yet conscious swimmer struggles upward, before our eyes, to the surface of the sutfocating element, and shrieks to the shrieking and the powerless for help, are shouts of joy and exultation in comparison to this. I would have started on my feet, but my limbs refused their office, and my heart beat audibly and . even loudly at my ribs. I trembled and shivered like a sick man at the first accession of a fever, and stared wildly and vainly around me in unimaginable terror. I had raised my head and back from my couch, and sustained my shuddering frame on my arms, which were behind me ; but they soon grew

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