d the doctor, who advanced towards him
with a smile and stretched out his hand.

"You have a joyful house now," said he.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Vertessy, stammering with delight; he knew
very well, all the time, what the doctor meant.

"A wee, wee cherub has arrived," whispered the doctor--"and 'tis a boy
cherub too," he added with a still broader smile.

The next moment Vertessy was kneeling down before his wife, and pressing
her hands hundreds and hundreds of times to his burning lips.

And the wife, with a sweet and blissful smile, looked down upon her
husband like one of those whom the prayers of their beloved have called
back from the world beyond the grave.

"With God there is mercy!" was all that she could say.

CHAPTER XVI.

'TIS WELL THAT THE NIGHT IS BLACK.

At the Castle of Hetfalu everyone was quietly sleeping. None had any
thought of that black spectre which is the enemy of all living
creatures, which constrains the huge watch-dog to dig up graves with his
hind feet, which bids the night owl utter her dismal notes on the
housetop alongside of the creaking weather-cock, which sends into the
vestibules and corridors its living visiting-cards in the shape of those
large, black, night-moths with pale skull-like effigies painted on their
backs as upon tombs, beneath whose feet the furniture creaks and
crackles, which makes that tiny invisible beetle hidden between the
boards of the beds begin tick-tick-ticking like a fairy watch, eleven
times in succession, by way of showing that the witching hour of night
is close at hand.

Oh! there is such a great unanimity among these dumb creatures of the
night and darkness.

The wind blew gloomy-looking clouds before it across the sky, clouds
which hastened away from that district; which jostled one another as
they scudded along, some high, some low, and kept on changing their
shapes as if they feared lest something might catch them there. Some of
them had blood-red linings from the flames of distant conflagrations,
and these flew rapidly along, trying to force their way through in
advance of the rest; but these others sped along still faster, lest
they, too, should be enkindled.

And in the darkness disorderly masses of men might have been dimly seen
assembling in the roads and stealthily proceeding towards the castle. In
the tap-room of the _csarda_ evil counsellors are discussing the
destruction of all the dwellers in the castle.

Three