Whether it was the clamour of the crows, or the rustling of the riotous rats—as they chased one another along the empty shelves, and behind the decayed wainscotting of the old kitchen—or whether the circumstance was due to some other, and less explicable cause, certain it is that the slumbers of Gregory Garth were at that crisis interrupted.
His snoring suddenly came to a termination; and he awoke with a start.
It was a start, moreover, that led to a more serious disturbance: for, having destroyed his equilibrium on the beechwood bench—which chanced to be of somewhat slender dimensions—his body came down upon the hard stone flags of the floor, with a concussion, that for several seconds completely deprived him of breath.
On recovering his wind—and along with it his senses—which had for a while remained in a state of obfuscation—the ex-footpad soon comprehended the nature of the mishap that had befallen him.
But the unpleasant tumble upon the flagged floor, had cured him of all inclination to return to his treacherous couch; and, instead, he strolled out into the open air, to consult the sun—his unfailing monitor—as to the time of day.
Only the morning before, Gregory had been the proprietor of a watch—whether honestly so need not be said; but this timepiece was now ticking within the pigeon-hole depository of an Uxbridge pawnbroker; and the duplicate which the ex-footpad carried in his fob could give him no information about the hour.
In reality, he had not been asleep more than twenty minutes; but his dreams—drawn from a wide range of actual experiences—led him to believe that he had been slumbering for a much longer time.
He was rather surprised—though not too well pleased—when, on reaching the door, and “squinting” outside, he perceived by the sky that it was still only the earliest hour of the day; and that, after all his dreaming, he had not had the advantage of over half an hour’s sleep.
He was contemplating a return to his bench-bedstead; when, on casting a stray glance outwards, his eye fell upon the figure of a man moving slowly around one of the angles of the mansion. He saw it was Oriole.
As Gregory knew that Oriole was the proper butler of the establishment—or at all events carried the key of the wine-cellar—it occurred to him that, through the intervention of the Indian, he might obtain a morning dram, to refresh him after his uneasy slumber.