"I can't sleep, Rattlin," said he, "and tarnation glad am I to see that you can't caulk either. A dutiful son you would be, to be snoozing here, and very likely, at this very moment, the rascal's knife is hacking at your father's weasand. It is not yet twelve o'clock; and I saw from my window, from whence I can see the Hall plainly, a strange dancing of light about the windows, and you may take an old sailor's word that something uncommon's in the wind. Let us go and reconnoitre." "With all my heart; any action is better than this wretched inactivity of suspense. I will complete my dress, and you, in the meantime, look to the pistols." We were soon ready, and sallied forth unperceived from the inn. We had no purpose, no ultimate views; yet both Pigtop and myself seemed fully to understand that we should be compelled into some desperate adventure. I was going armed, and by night, like an assassin, to seek the presence, or, at least, to watch over the safety of a father I had never seen, never loved, and never respected. The space that separated the abode of my father from the inn was soon passed; and, a little after midnight, I stood within the gloomy and park-like enclosure that circumscribed the front of the large old mansion. The lodge was a ruin, the gates had long been thrown down, and we stumbled over some of their remnants, imbedded in the soil, and matted to it with long and tangled grass. I observed that there was a scaffolding over the front of the lodge; but whether it were for the purpose of repairing or taking down, I could not then discover. As my companion and myself advanced to the front of the building, we also observed that, lofty as were its walls, it was scaffolded to the very attics, and some part of the roof of the right wing was already removed. Altogether, a more comfortless, a more dispiriting view could hardly have been presented; and its disconsolateness was much increased by the dim and fitful light that a young moon gave at intervals, upon gables, casements, and clumps of funereal yews. "And this," as we stood before the portals, said I to Pigtop, "is my inheritance--mine. Is it not a princely residence?" "It looms like a county jail, that's being turned into a private madhouse. If so be as how witches weren't against the law of the land, this seems the very place for them. Do you believe in ghosts?" "Verily, yes, and--no." "Because I think that I see the ghosts of a hearse and four horses among those tall trees at that corner." "Then, Pig, we must be on the alert--for I see it, too; but the vision has assumed the every-day deception of a post-chaise and four." "Jeer as you will, it is a hearse: somebody's just losing the number of his mess. It will take away a corpse to-night, depend upon it. That a post-chaise! Pooh! I can see the black plumes waving upon the horses' heads; and--hark at the low, deep moanings that seem to sweep by it-- that is not at all natural--let us go back."