As he set it down, a noise behind made him turn sharply round and listen; nothing was visible but the dark stains of the wainscotting, and its gilded pannels glistening ruddily in the glow of the fire. From an antique brass sconce on the wall, the light of three great candles burned steadily on the old discoloured floor, the massively jointed arch of the fire-place, which bore a legend in Saxon characters, on three old pictures by Jamieson, of cavaliers in barrelled doublets, high ruffs, and peaked beards, and one of the famous Barbara Napier of Bruntisfield, who so narrowly escaped the stake for her sorceries, on a spectral suit of mail, and six old heavily carved chairs, ranged against the wall like grotesque gnomes with their arms akimbo; but although nothing was visible to create alarm, the aspect of the chamber was so gloomy, that certain tales of a spectre cavalier who haunted the old house, began to flit through Walter's mind, and he could not resist listening intensely; still not a sound was heard, but the wind rumbling in the hollow vent, and the creaking of the turret vanes overhead. "Tush!" said he, and whether it was the faint echo of his own voice or a sound again behind the wainscot, he knew not, but he palpably heard something that made him bring the hilt of his long rapier more readily to hand. The portraits, like all those of persons whom one knows to have been long dead, when viewed by the dim candle-light had a staring, desolate, and ghastly expression, and they really seemed to "frown" over their high ruffs on the intruder, who would probably have frowned in return, had he not, even in the harsh lines of the old Scottish artist traced a family likeness to the soft features of Lilian Napier. But there was a stern, keen and malignant expression in the features of the old sorceress, Lady Barbara, that made Walter often avert his eyes, for her sharp features seemed to start from the pannel instinct with life and mockery. As sleep weighed down the eyelids of Walter, strange fancies pressed thick and fast, though obscurely, on his mind; and though once or twice the same faint hollow sound made him start and take another survey of the apartment by the dim light of the sconce and dying embers of the fire, his head bowed down on the table, and at last he slumbered soundly.