the aged darkness of others,
and the thousand sparklings, reflected from bright substances in the
walls of many; these matters engaged Robin's attention for a while, and
then began to grow wearisome. Next he endeavored to define the forms of
distant objects, starting away, with almost ghostly indistinctness,
just as his eye appeared to grasp them, and finally he took a minute
survey of an edifice which stood on the opposite side of the street,
directly in front of the church-door, where he was stationed. It was a
large, square mansion, distinguished from its neighbors by a balcony,
which rested on tall pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window,
communicating therewith.

"Perhaps this is the very house I have been seeking," thought Robin.

Then he strove to speed away the time, by listening to a murmur which
swept continually along the street, yet was scarcely audible, except to
an unaccustomed ear like his; it was a low, dull, dreamy sound,
compounded of many noises, each of which was at too great a distance to
be separately heard. Robin marvelled at this snore of a sleeping town,
and marvelled more whenever its continuity was broken by now and then a
distant shout, apparently loud where it originated. But altogether it
was a sleep-inspiring sound, and, to shake off its drowsy influence,
Robin arose, and climbed a window-frame, that he might view the
interior of the church. There the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell
down upon the deserted pews, and extended along the quiet aisles. A
fainter yet more awful radiance was hovering around the pulpit, and one
solitary ray had dared to rest upon the open page of the great Bible.
Had nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the house which
man had builded? Or was that heavenly light the visible sanctity of the
place,--visible because no earthly and impure feet were within the
walls? The scene made Robin's heart shiver with a sensation of
loneliness stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest depths of his
native woods; so he turned away and sat down again before the door.
There were graves around the church, and now an uneasy thought obtruded
into Robin's breast. What if the object of his search, which had been
so often and so strangely thwarted, were all the time mouldering in his
shroud? What if his kinsman should glide through yonder gate, and nod
and smile to him in dimly passing by?

"Oh that any breathing thing were here with me!" said Robin.

Recal