he house. It warn't the common company
sleepin' room, I expect, but kinder make shifts, tho' they was good
enough too for the matter o' that; at all events I don't want no better.

"Well, I had hardly got well housed a'most, afore it came on to rain, as
if it was in rael right down airnest. It warn't just a roarin', racin',
sneezin' rain like a thunder shower, but it kept a steady travellin'
gait, up hill and down dale, and no breathin' time nor batin' spell.
It didn't look as if it would stop till it was done, that's a fact. But
still as it was too late to go out agin that arternoon, I didn't think
much about it then. I hadn't no notion what was in store for me next
day, no more nor a child; if I had, I'd a double deal sooner hanged
myself, than gone brousing in such place as that, in sticky weather.

"A wet day is considerable tiresome, any where or any way you can fix
it; but it's wus at an English country house than any where else, cause
you are among strangers, formal, cold, gallus polite, and as thick in
the head-piece as a puncheon. You hante nothin' to do yourself and they
never have nothin' to do; they don't know nothin' about America, and
don't want to. Your talk don't interest them, and they can't talk to
interest nobody but themselves; all you've got to do, is to pull out
your watch and see how time goes; how much of the day is left, and then
go to the winder and see how the sky looks, and whether there is any
chance of holdin' up or no. Well, that time I went to bed a little
airlier than common, for I felt considerable sleepy, and considerable
strange too; so as soon as I cleverly could, I off and turned in.

"Well I am an airly riser myself. I always was from a boy, so I waked up
jist about the time when day ought to break, and was a thinkin' to get
up; but the shutters was too, and it was as dark as ink in the room, and
I heer'd it rainin' away for dear life. 'So,' sais I to myself, 'what
the dogs is the use of gittin' up so airly? I can't get out and get a
smoke, and I can't do nothin' here; so here goes for a second nap.' Well
I was soon off agin in a most a beautiful of a snore, when all at once
I heard thump-thump agin the shutter--and the most horrid noise I ever
heerd since I was raised; it was sunthin' quite onairthly.

"'Hallo!' says I to myself, 'what in natur is all this hubbub about?
Can this here confounded old house be harnted? Is them spirits that's
jabbering gibberish there, or is I wide