and the farm horses have
broken loose. Utter destruction to the lawn, and to the flower beds, and
the glorious rhododendrons! What negligent menials.' And while murmuring
my abhorrence of such atrocious carelessness, and my deep regret at its
results, my eyes closed. The next morning I peeped with apprehension from
my window, on what I presumed would prove a scene of devastation. All was
fair and smiling, gaze where I would. Here was the trim and smoothly
shaven lawn--there the blooming parterre--beyond the early flowering
shrubs not a twig, not a leaf injured. I left my room in amazement.

"Below, the papers had arrived. They gave the details of another and
decisive battle. _That_, and an expedition during the morning to a
neighboring Roman encampment, banished the horsemen of the preceding
night, nor did they recur till I found myself in my room, exhausted and
bent down with pain, at eleven. The fact was I had played the fool and
overwalked myself, and my avenger, the bullet, began to remind me of his
presence in my system. For three mortal hours no poor wretch, save in his
death struggle, endured greater agony than I did. At last, a 'compassion
that never faileth,' bestowed on me an interval of ease, and I slept.
Heavily, I imagine, since for some time a strange booming noise droned
continuously in my ears before it waked me. At last I was roused. I
listened. The sound was like nothing I had ever heard before. It seemed
as if a heavy-sledge hammer, or huge wooden mallet, carefully muffled in
wadding, was at work in the room _below me_. The stable clock struck
four. 'No mason,' thought I, 'no mason would commence his day's work at
four in the morning. Burglars, perhaps,' and I resolved to give alarm.
The noise suddenly ceased, and some three minutes afterward as suddenly
recommenced in the children's play-room immediately _above me_. 'Be they
whom they may they shall be disturbed.' And I began to dress in the dark
with all possible expedition. Some partial progress was made when the
noise ceased in the upper room and descended forthwith to my own. An
instant afterward it seemed to proceed from the library. In about twenty
minutes it ceased altogether.

"'No mason, no burglar,' was my conclusion. 'This noise has nothing in
common with either the one or the other. Did my old guide speak
accurately when he called this "The House of Mystery?" Whether it be such
or no, it is not the house for me. I can't sleep in it. I mus