de for
the child. There was a great contrast between the Town House and the
Sea Castle. The Town House was full of lights. All the sitting rooms
were generally lighted, for a great deal of company came there, and
there were always lights along the passages; and the nursery windows
looked into a square, and the square was lighted up by lamps every
night; and it was one of Roderick's greatest pleasures to watch the
lamplighter running quickly up the tall ladder to the lamps to light
them, and then popping down again equally hurriedly, and running along
(ladder and all) to the next lamp post, and so on, till the square was
brilliant all round; and very often, as Roderick lay in his little bed
watching the glimmering thrown by these pretty lamps on the nursery
wall, he used to think and think of his friend the nimble lamplighter,
till he dropped fast asleep. You see, therefore, he had very little to
try his courage in the Town House, and there was seldom or never any
fuss about his fears till the move to the Sea Castle took place; and
then there were no more lamps and lamplighters, and no more
comfortable glimmerings from his bright pets the lamps after he went
to bed; and he used to get silly directly, and declare that he saw
bears whenever he shut his eyes; and he seemed to expect to find lions
and tigers under the sofas, by the fuss he made when he was asked to
go into the rooms. Certainly there was a grand old fashioned lamp in
the hall of the Sea Castle; but the hall itself was so big, and went
up so high, that the light in one part only seemed to make the shadow
and darkness of the other part look blacker still; so that I must
confess there was something gloomy about the house. Then, too, there
were those two turrets with the winding staircases, and as Roderick
had never dared to do any thing more than peep in at the low entrance
doors below, where he saw nothing but four or five steps going up into
complete blackness, he had got a sort of notion there must be
something horrid about them.

Well; it was soon after this little boy's sixth birthday, that the
family arrived at the Sea-Castle, and it so happened, that, on the day
after their arrival, there was some very stormy and dismal weather.
The wind howled very loudly, and there was a good deal of rain; and
Lady Madeline wished they had waited a week or two longer. The sky was
so charged and heavy, too, that they found the house very dark, even
by day-light; and Rod