my sleep so much more miserable than my watchfulness, I got up, and,
putting on a portion of my clothes, began to promenade my room with a
slow step and a very anxious mind.

I had made but few turns, when my door was abruptly thrust open, and
Pigtop stalked in, fully dressed.

"I can't sleep, Rattlin," said he, "and tarnation glad am I to see that
you can't caulk either. A dutiful son you would be, to be snoozing
here, and very likely, at this very moment, the rascal's knife is
hacking at your father's weasand. It is not yet twelve o'clock; and I
saw from my window, from whence I can see the Hall plainly, a strange
dancing of light about the windows, and you may take an old sailor's
word that something uncommon's in the wind. Let us go and reconnoitre."

"With all my heart; any action is better than this wretched inactivity
of suspense. I will complete my dress, and you, in the meantime, look
to the pistols."

We were soon ready, and sallied forth unperceived from the inn. We had
no purpose, no ultimate views; yet both Pigtop and myself seemed fully
to understand that we should be compelled into some desperate adventure.
I was going armed, and by night, like an assassin, to seek the
presence, or, at least, to watch over the safety of a father I had never
seen, never loved, and never respected.

The space that separated the abode of my father from the inn was soon
passed; and, a little after midnight, I stood within the gloomy and
park-like enclosure that circumscribed the front of the large old
mansion. The lodge was a ruin, the gates had long been thrown down, and
we stumbled over some of their remnants, imbedded in the soil, and
matted to it with long and tangled grass. I observed that there was a
scaffolding over the front of the lodge; but whether it were for the
purpose of repairing or taking down, I could not then discover.

As my companion and myself advanced to the front of the building, we
also observed that, lofty as were its walls, it was scaffolded to the
very attics, and some part of the roof of the right wing was already
removed. Altogether, a more comfortless, a more dispiriting view could
hardly have been presented; and its disconsolateness was much increased
by the dim and fitful light that a young moon gave at intervals, upon
gables, casements, and clumps of funereal yews.

"And this," as we stood before the portals, said I to Pigtop, "is my
inheritance--mine. Is it not a princely res