Elated with the idea of his own uncommon cleverness, he cantered along the York road from the moor with corresponding briskness; turned down a green lane to the left, cleared several fences and a pair of gates in his progress, and reached within sight of his “Establishment for the Insane” at Nabbfield, as the last light of another unwished-for and unwelcome sun shot through the barred and grated windows of the house, and served dimly to show to the melancholy habitants of those cells the extent of their deprivations and their misery. Far advanced as it was in the evening, the doctor had not yet dined; his professional duties, together with some other causes already explained, having detained him beyond his usual hour. Nevertheless, for reasons best known to himself, but which, it may be supposed, the events of the afternoon had operated in producing, the doctor had no sooner dismounted, and resigned his steed to the care of a groom, who appeared in waiting the instant that the clatter of his hoofs sounded on the stones of the yard, than, instead of retiring to that removed portion of the building, in which, for the purpose of being beyond reach of the cries of those who were kept in confinement, his own private apartments were situated, he demanded of one of the keepers the key of a particular cell. Having obtained it,-- “Shall I attend you, sir?” asked the man. “No, Robson. James is harmless. I will see him into his cell myself to-night.” “He is in the patient's yard, sir,” replied the keeper. “Very well--very well. Wait outside; and, if I want assistance, I will call you.” The man retired, while Doctor Rowel proceeded down a long and ill-lighted passage, or corridor, in which were several angular turns and windings; and when nearly lost in the gloom of the place, he might have been heard to draw back a heavy bolt, and raise a spring-latch like an iron bar, which made fast the door that opened upon the yard, or piece of ground to which the keeper had alluded. It was just at that brief but peculiar time at the turn of day and night, which every observer of Nature must occasionally have remarked, when the light of the western atmosphere, and that of a rayless moon high up the southern heaven, mingle together in subdued harmony, and produce a kind of illumination, issuing from no given spot, but pervading equally the whole atmosphere,--like that which we might imagine of a fairy's palace,--without any particular source, neither wholly of heaven nor of earth, but partaking partially of each.