and tapestry hangings (drawn back,
however) from another room as spacious,
where could be, made out the dusky outline
of a huge bed. And on the chimney-piece,
in front of a huge mirror, was this famous
clock which had cost a man's wits.

"See," said Bontiquet, holding the candle
close, " what a wonderful thing it is! Every
night, towards twelve o'clock, he sits up to
wind it; which he does with such tenderness!
it might be a child he was putting to
bed."

It was one of those curious horological toys
that used to be the fashion in the early days
of clock-making. The poor Abbé with
marvellous ingenuity had peopled his clock
with all manner of strange actors. There
was the cock on the top, that came out and
crowed for the quarter and half-hours. There
was the door that opened, and the procession
of men and women that came forth for the
striking of the hour. There was a bell-
ringer that pulled the bell, and rung out the
time. There were the changes of the moon
and seasons; the movement of the stars,
and innumerable other devices very pleasing
to contemplate. No wonder they had set a
man's wits awry. As we stood looking, the
cock flapped his wings, and crowed, the
figures came trooping solemnly, and drew up
with a quaint gravity, and the bell-ringer
tolled out eleven o'clock.

"It has this convenience— the absence of
our Abbé," Bontiquet said, "that it gives you
choice of rooms. Our house is full, and you
would have to ascend to a little apartment
up-stairs. Will you choose this room ?"

"With all my heart," I answered. I love
these great chambers. I shall be the
departed Seigneur for a night at least. Still I
hankered to learn more concerning the poor
wandering priest.

"One word," I said. Bontiquet was going
to the door. " What was that spoken during
dinner about the marriage of his niece ?"

"Only this," said he, "that he has wit
to save her from a wicked husband; the
worst fellow, I am told, in the kingdom, and
she has sense enough to hearken to her
uncle. He has written and threatened him,
but in vain. Dieu merci! He held firm.
I will now wish Monsieur a very good night!"
He closed the door softly behind him, and
left me.

I was soon swimming, as it were, in the
Great Sea of Napery, floating in an ocean
of broad linen. In these great beds on the
Ware model, a prodigious luxuriance—a sense
of infinity: even of temporary nobility.
Our poor Seigneur must have lain here, and
extended his signorial limbs to the right or
to the left in those happy days before Samson
had held up his head on the scaffold, or
before his shoulder had got used to the kit
fiddle as maître de danse. Unhappy nobleman,
tuning his kit fiddle and pointing his
toes to one and sixpence the lesson. Playing
so merrily for Marie and Corydon, and
Phyllis and Rosalie on the green. Join
hands now, sweet demoiselle. Faster now
—play up, marquis! Thrum, tambourine,
more vigorously! Round again! Phyllis is
my only joy! not in the least tired—not in
the least. Bontiquet—ah!

To weary sleepers rude disturbance and
cruel wakening are odious. There should be
a law in all well-ordered parishes to protect
them, and not allow horsemen to come
clattering into inn yards at unholy hours. A
monstrous grievance for tired men. I heard
the fellow ride his beast in, in most unfeeling
fashion, with spur and whip, up to the
very door: and then halloo louder for some
one to take his horse. Presently are heard
steps in the gallery, and afterwards in the
room separated from me by the tapestry
half drawn aside. A sleepy waiter was
making up a shakedown or impromptu bed.
Bontiquet himself is fast bound in slumber,
or he would not have tolerated this treatment.
Eyes, however, which seem fitted with leaden
rims, must have their way, and will look no
more. " We must close up," they say, and
so I let them close up.

I am fast slipping away into what may be
called muddle-land, when the great posts of
the bed began to take, indistinctly, the shapes
of the trees I had passed by in the day, and I
began my rambles over again through the
open country, when I am brought back with
a crash to the Seigneur's room. Somebody
is tramping about the next room—speaking
to himself. Wroth again at this second
disturbance, I look out through the tapestry, and
see that there is a light burning on the floor,
and that a short man, with very disordered
looks, is walking to and fro muttering to
himself, and stripping off his clothes as he
walks. I had seen his face before, but
where ?— a round cunning face with a scar.
Ah! at the gate! One of the ill-looking
horsemen. Now I put it to myself with
gravity, Was this a discreet position to be in,
with such company alongside of one, though
even in a Seigneur's apartment ? It was a
monstrous feature in Bontiquet's ménage,
that you were thus liable to be set cheek by
jowl with fellows of this complexion—and so
— and so— I would complain to—the clock!
Rosalie—dance—fandango, thrum, thrum—
join hands—all—all!

Profoundest, absorbing slumber. Floating
in sweetest dreams, that bring me back
home again. Soft waving meadows, happy
trim hunting-grounds, found in the dream-
country, and, that placid dream sunlight
blazing eternally over all; when there comes
suddenly a piercing cry shooting through my
brain, which makes me start up suddenly,
and look round, not knowing whether that
dream-country was still about me or no.
There was a figure bending over me, a
figure in shirt and trousers, a face with a
scar across it, but pale, ghastly, and filled