ettles and cooking utensils, some steaming with savoury
preparations for the evening's repast, and others nearly ready for the
service, Dick insinuated himself, until he came to a little door in
the corner, the entrance to a staircase communicating with the leads
above. Through this door marched the incorrigible intruder--the sentry
from the summit having just issued therefrom, fearful lest the castle
should tumble about his ears. Dick's course was therefore unimpeded;
and after sundry gyrations and stoppages, now and then, to peep
through the loopholes, he emerged into broad daylight on the roof of
the tower. Here he paused for some time, entranced with the sudden
change he beheld. The bustle and animation around and below him; the
vessels, with their brave and gallant equipments, anchored in the
bay;--all this amused Dick vastly for a while. But the most
heart-ravishing delights end ultimately in satiety and disgust,
greater, and probably more keenly felt, the more they have been
relished and enjoyed. Dick began to feel listless and tired with his
day's work. He laid his head upon a groove or niche in the
battlements, and fell fast asleep. It seems the sentinel did not
return; for Dick remained undisturbed, and when he awoke it was
completely dark, save that there was a wan gleam from a dull watery
moon, just dipping into a stratum of dark clouds over the sea. His
ideas, not over-lucid in broad daylight, would necessarily be still
more hazy and obscure in his present situation. Unable to extricate
them, he rubbed his eyes and made faces; yawned and groped about for
his usual dormitory, in a little cell behind the kitchen at the abbey.
But the vision of the moon--which, by reason of the confined glen
wherein the abbey was built, rarely blessed the sight of a
night-watcher--was a wondrous and puzzling appearance. He had some
confused recollection that he had mounted a flight of steps, and that,
by contrary motion, descending would be the next consequent movement.
To this end he diligently sought an opening, and, naturally enough,
took the first that presented itself. Creeping round the angle of a
turret, he came to a flight of steps, which he descended. It was not
long ere he perceived a faint light through an aperture or chink in
the wall. He pressed against the side cautiously, when the wall itself
appeared to give way, and he entered, through a narrow door, into a
large room, lighted by a few turf embers, that flicker