It was not until a late hour that we left the kitchen of the Devil-Tavern, and retired to our apartment for the night; for the prospect of sleep did not bring with it much consolation, although extremely weary. Floys Boyo conducted us, leading the way up the steps of a perpendicular ladder to a landing, whence he stepped into a cockloft, set down the lamp on an empty barrel, and departed with an oath, grumbling about the trouble which we had given him, and wishing us in the Rockaway surf. 'He is an atrocious devil,' said Tertullian; 'let us inspect the den, while the lamp holds out to burn.' We found neither lock, catch, nor fastening of any description; and to have our slumbers supervised by any of the amiable crew below, was not pleasant. Having tortured ingenuity a little, we took an eel-spear and a broken oar which lay on the beams beneath the roof, crossed them, and secured them against the door by the aid of some tarred ropes, which were likewise at hand. Then we made a broken barb of the spear serviceable by jamming it violently between the floor and the lower part of the door; after which we lugged a heavy old chest, and deposited it, together with whatever movables were to be found in the room. This done, we threw ourselves down upon the straw in all our clothes, drew over us our cloaks, and over these the blankets which belonged to the bed, and placing our fowling-pieces by our side, abandoned ourselves to the protection of a kind Providence. In less than half an hour Tertullian snored prodigiously, and had I been stretched on clover, fanned with the sweetest airs of summer, and without a care to ruffle my tranquillity, I never could have slept a wink with such an uproarious fellow beside me. As it was, there were other causes which kept me wakeful. For, beside the fears which might assail one at midnight in such a solitude, it was dismal to hear the winds raving about the house; the bricks tumbling from the chimney and rolling with a hollow noise down the roof; the blast now screaming in your ear and instantly heard afar off, as if it had gone off to join the troops of the winds; the rattling of doors and loosened window-frames, and the creaking on its rusty hinges and slam-banging of the sign of the Devil-Tavern. To this might be added the moaning of pine trees as their heavy tops swayed in the grove, the plashing of the waves on the still shore, the roll and confusion of the breakers at Rockaway. How impatiently I counted the hours, and longed again for the light of day, that scatters fears and vagaries with the brooding shades, and imparts fresh life, and courage, and determined zeal.