t invariably has the effect of magnifying the significance of
every, even the very commonest, occurrences. It resembles that peculiar
condition in certain maladies when the senses become preternaturally
acute; in such moments the reason is never satisfied with drawing
only/row inferences for any fact before it; it seeks for more, and in
the effort becomes lost in the mazes of mere fancy. I will own that as,
with stealthy step and noiseless gesture, I followed that old hag, there
was a kind of ecstasy in my terror which no mere sense of pleasure could
convey. The light seemed to show ghastly shapes, as she passed, on
the green and mouldy walls, and her head, with its masses of long and
straggling gray hair, nodded in shadow like some unearthly spectre.

As she came nigh the top, I heard a weak and whining cry, something too
deep for the voice of infancy, but seeming too faint for manhood. "Ay,
ay," croaked the hag, harshly, "I'm coming, I'm coming!" and as she said
this, she pushed open a door and entered a room, which, by the passing
gleam of light as she went, I perceived lay next to the roof, for the
rafters and the tiles were both visible, as there was no ceiling.

I held my breath as I slowly stole along, and then, reaching the door as
it lay half ajar, I crouched down and peeped in.

CHAPTER XVII. A "SCENE" AND "MY LUCUBRATIONS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE."

When the light of the candle which the old woman carried had somewhat
dissipated the darkness, I could see the whole interior of the room; and
certainly, well habituated as I had been from my earliest years to such
sights, poverty like this I never had seen before! Not a chair nor table
was there; a few broken utensils for cooking, such as are usually
thrown away as useless among rubbish, stood upon the cold hearth. A few
potatoes on one broken dish, and a little meat on another, were the only
things like food. It was not for some minutes that I perceived in the
corner a miserable bed of straw confined within a plank, supported by
two rough stones; nor was it till I had looked long and closely that I
saw that the figure of a man lay extended on the bed, his stiffened and
outstretched limbs resembling those of a corpse. Towards this the old
woman now tottered with slow steps, and, setting the small piece of
candle upright in a saucer, she approached the bed. "There it is, now;
look at it, and make yer mind aisy," said she, placing it on the floor
beside the bed, i