nce of his own ears;
for not only was there no one in the room save Sir Geoffrey Hudson and
himself, but all the fastenings of the door were so secure, that it
seemed impossible that they could have been opened and again fixed,
without a great deal of noise, which, on the last occasion at least,
could not possibly have escaped his ears, seeing that he must have been
on his feet, and employed in searching the chamber, when the unknown, if
an earthly being, was in the act of retreating from it.

Julian gazed for a moment with great earnestness, and no little
perplexity, first on the bolted door, then on the grated window; and
began to accuse his own imagination of having played him an unpleasant
trick. He answered little to the questions of Hudson, and returning
to his bed, heard, in silence, a long studied oration on the merits of
Saint Bridget, which comprehended the greater part of her long-winded
legend, and concluded with the assurance, that, from all accounts
preserved of her, that holy saint was the least of all possible women,
except those of the pigmy kind.

By the time the dwarf had ceased to speak, Julian's desire of sleep had
returned; and after a few glances around the apartment, which was still
illuminated by the expiring beams of the holy taper, his eyes were again
closed in forgetfulness, and his repose was not again disturbed in the
course of that night.

Morning dawns on Newgate, as well as on the freest mountain-turf which
Welshman or wild-goat ever trode; but in so different a fashion, that
the very beams of heaven's precious sun, when they penetrate into the
recesses of the prison-house, have the air of being committed to jail.
Still, with the light of day around him, Peveril easily persuaded
himself of the vanity of his preceding night's visions; and smiled when
he reflected that fancies, similar to those to which his ear was often
exposed in the Isle of Man, had been able to arrange themselves in a
manner so impressive, when he heard them from the mouth of so singular a
character as Hudson, and in the solitude of a prison.

Before Julian had awaked, the dwarf had already quitted his bed, and
was seated in the chimney-corner of the apartment, where, with his
own hands, he had arranged a morsel of fire, partly attending to the
simmering of a small pot, which he had placed on the flame, partly
occupied with a huge folio volume which lay on the table before him, and
seemed well-nigh as tall and bulk