"Then shut it," went on Maudlin, as Ruth owned to the fact, "shut it, if you don't want your poor old nurse to catch her death o' rheumatics. A mighty fine sort of a night to be havin' casements open, this! What's gone, I wonder, of all yesterday's sunshine? 'Tis as cold as Candlemas. Well they may say:-- "'Cast ne'er a clout Till May be out.' If--hark! what's that, child?" "I heard nothing," answered Ruth, listening with all her ears, "nothing but the rain," she added, as a smart sleety shower rattled against the glass. [Sidenote: The creak of the drawbridge.] "So 'tis--at last. There wasn't a joint of all my poor old bones that didn't tell me that was comin'. But 'twasn't that I heard. 'Twas--hush! There 'tis again! The clank o' the draw-bridge chains! or I'll eat my head off." "Don't make rash vows, you silly old dear!" rejoined Ruth, with an uneasy little laugh. "Wasn't the drawbridge let up at sunset, as it always is? What fancies you do take into your head, Maudlin!" "Oh, ay; 'tis as full of 'em, I daresay, as an egg's full o' meat," grumbled on the old lady. "'Tis only the young ones that are the wise ones nowadays. Good lack! good lack! and how they do like too sittin' up disturbin' the rest o' them that's no mind for moonin' and star-gazin'." "There's neither moon nor star to be seen," said Ruth, glancing towards the outside obscurity. "'Tis a pitch-dark night." "And ten, as I live, by the tower clock! For shame on thee, Ruth," continued the old woman, as the strokes fell; "put out thy light this instant, and grope to bed as thou canst; or I'll warrant we shall never be hearin' the last o't from the master to-morrow. His one eye's sharper than a dozen folk's two, and if it did catch sight of a gleam--What do you say?" "I did not speak." "I fancied I heard you mumblin' somethin'. For the merciful powers' sake put out the light, I say." "Good-night, Maudlin," said Ruth, obeying the injunction at last, but not without reluctance. A smothered sound, which might have been a reciprocal good-night, but still more resembled a snore, witnessed that the darkness had speedily worked its slumberous effects on Maudlin. Poor Ruth, however, deprived of her lamp's companionship, and too wakeful for bed, groped her way back to her old seat, and sat, every nerve sharpened, to catch the faintest echo. [Sidenote: A wild night.] Save the driving rain, however, and the sweeping of the wind in low sullen gusts round the walls, and its jerking of the tall vane on the tower-top, till the thing complained direfully, not a sound was to be heard. A likely night, truly, for folks to choose to be abroad, especially thereabouts, where there was scarce so much as a tree to shelter you. Anyhow it was plain these expected visitors of her father's had not been so eager to be getting themselves dripping to the skin; and the maltster had no doubt given them up ever so long ago, and gone to bed. Sidenote: The striking of the hour.]