e within I was
conscious all the time of an uncomfortable feeling that was half
uneasiness and half apprehension. The result of it was that, instead of
reading, I spent the afternoon on the water paddling and fishing, and
when I got home about sundown, brought with me half a dozen delicious
black bass for the supper-table and the larder.

As sleep was an important matter to me at this time, I had decided that
if my aversion to the room was so strongly marked on my return as it had
been before, I would move my bed down into the sitting-room, and sleep
there. This was, I argued, in no sense a concession to an absurd and
fanciful fear, but simply a precaution to ensure a good night's sleep. A
bad night involved the loss of the next day's reading,--a loss I was not
prepared to incur.

I accordingly moved my bed downstairs into a corner of the sitting-room
facing the door, and was moreover uncommonly glad when the operation
was completed, and the door of the bedroom closed finally upon the
shadows, the silence, and the strange _fear_ that shared the room with
them.

The croaking stroke of the kitchen clock sounded the hour of eight as I
finished washing up my few dishes, and closing the kitchen door behind
me, passed into the front room. All the lamps were lit, and their
reflectors, which I had polished up during the day, threw a blaze of
light into the room.

Outside the night was still and warm. Not a breath of air was stirring;
the waves were silent, the trees motionless, and heavy clouds hung like
an oppressive curtain over the heavens. The darkness seemed to have
rolled up with unusual swiftness, and not the faintest glow of colour
remained to show where the sun had set. There was present in the
atmosphere that ominous and overwhelming silence which so often precedes
the most violent storms.

I sat down to my books with my brain unusually clear, and in my heart
the pleasant satisfaction of knowing that five black bass were lying in
the ice-house, and that to-morrow morning the old farmer would arrive
with fresh bread and eggs. I was soon absorbed in my books.

As the night wore on the silence deepened. Even the chipmunks were
still; and the boards of the floors and walls ceased creaking. I read on
steadily till, from the gloomy shadows of the kitchen, came the hoarse
sound of the clock striking nine. How loud the strokes sounded! They
were like blows of a big hammer. I closed one book and opened another,
feeling