reigned around,
and could not but admire what he saw; he sighed, he seemed to sigh, from
a pleasure he felt in the fact of his security; he could repose there
without fear, and breathe the balmy air that fanned his cheek.

"Certainly," he muttered, "things might have been worse, but not much
worse; however, they might have been much better; the ignorant are
away--the most to be feared, because they have no guide and no control,
save what can be exerted over them by their fears and their passions."

He paused to look again over the scene, and, as far as the eye could
reach, and that, moonlight as it was, was many miles, the country was
diversified with hill and dale, meadow and ploughed land; the open
fields, and the darker woods, and the silvery stream that ran at no
great distance, all presented a scene that was well calculated to warm
the imagination, and to give the mind that charm which a cultivated
understanding is capable of receiving.

There was but one thing wanted to make such a scene one of pure
happiness, and that was all absence of care of fears for the future and
the wants of life.

Suddenly there was a slight sound that came from the town. It was very
slight, but the ears of Sir Francis Varney were painfully acute of late;
the least sound that came across him was heard in a moment, and his
whole visage was changed to one of listening interest.

The sound was hushed; but his attention was not lulled, for he had been
placed in circumstances that made all his vigilance necessary for his
own preservation. Hence it was, what another would have passed over, or
not heard at all, he both heard and noticed. He was not sure of the
nature of the sound, it was so slight and so indistinct.

There it was again! Some persons were moving about in the town. The
sounds that came upon the night air seemed to say that there was an
unusual bustle in the town, which was, to Sir Francis Varney, ominous in
the extreme.

What could people in such a quiet, retired place require out at such an
hour at night? It must be something very unusual--something that must
excite them to a great degree; and Sir Francis began to feel very
uneasy.

"They surely," he muttered to himself--"they surely cannot have found
out my hiding place, and intend to hunt me from it, the blood-thirsty
hounds! they are never satisfied. The mischief they are permitted to do
on one occasion is but the precursor to another. The taste has caused
the appeti