side as chief mourners, each with a great waxen
taper burning in one hand, and a white pocket-handkerchief in the other.

Now in dreams it sometimes happens that men undergo sensations of awe,
and even horror, such as waking they never know, and which the scenery
and situation of the dream itself appear wholly inadequate to produce.
Mr. Paul Dangerfield, had he been called on to do it, would have kept
solitary watch in a dead man's chamber, and smoked his pipe as serenely
as he would in the club-room of the Phoenix. But here it was
different. The company were all hooded and silent, sitting in rows: and
there was a dismal sound of distant waters, and an indefinable darkness
and horror in the air; and, on a sudden, up sat the corpse of Sturk, and
thundered, with a shriek, a dreadful denunciation, and Dangerfield
started up in his bed aghast, and cried--'Charles Archer!'

The storm was bellowing and shrieking outside, and for some time that
grim, white gentleman, bolt upright in his shirt, did not know
distinctly in what part of the world, or, indeed, in what world he was.

'So,' said Mr. Dangerfield, soliloquising, 'Charles Nutter's alive, and
in prison, and what comes next? 'Tis enough to make one believe in a
devil almost! Why wasn't he drowned, d--n him? How did he get himself
taken, d--n him again? From the time I came into this unlucky village
I've smelt danger. That accursed beast, a corpse, and a ghost, and a
prisoner at last--well, he has been my evil genius. _If_ he were drowned
or hanged; born to be hanged, I hope: all I want is quiet--just _quiet_;
but I've a feeling the play's not played out yet. He'll give the hangman
the slip, will he: not if I can help it, though; but caution, Sir,
caution; life's at stake--my life's on the cast. The clerk's a wise dog
to get out of the way. Death's walking. What a cursed fool I was when I
came here and saw those beasts, and knew them, not to turn back again,
and leave them to possess their paradise! I think I've lost my caution
and common sense under some cursed infatuation. That handsome, insolent
wench, Miss Gertrude, 'twould be something to have her, and to humble
her, too; but--but 'tis not worth a week in such a neighbourhood.'

Now this soliloquy, which broke into an actual mutter every here and
there, occurred at about eleven o'clock A.M., in the little low
parlour of the Brass Castle, that looked out on the wintry river.

Mr. Dangerfield knew the virtues of toba