“Now, when we got there, the house was chock full of company, and considerin’ it warn’t an overly large one, and that Britishers won’t stay in a house, unless every feller gets a separate bed, it’s a wonder to me, how he stowed away as many as he did. Says he, ‘Excuse your quarters, Mr. Slick, but I find more company nor I expected here. In a day or two, some on ‘em will be off, and then you shall be better provided.’
“With that I was showed up a great staircase, and out o’ that by a door-way into a narrer entry and from that into an old T like looking building, that stuck out behind the house. It warn’t the common company sleepin’ room, I expect, but kinder make shifts, tho’ they was good enough too for the matter o’ that; at all events I don’t want no better.
“Well, I had hardly got well housed a’most, afore it came on to rain, as if it was in rael right down airnest. It warn’t just a roarin’, racin’, sneezin’ rain like a thunder shower, but it kept a steady travellin’ gait, up hill and down dale, and no breathin’ time nor batin’ spell. It didn’t look as if it would stop till it was done, that’s a fact. But still as it was too late to go out agin that arternoon, I didn’t think much about it then. I hadn’t no notion what was in store for me next day, no more nor a child; if I had, I’d a double deal sooner hanged myself, than gone brousing in such place as that, in sticky weather.
“A wet day is considerable tiresome, any where or any way you can fix it; but it’s wus at an English country house than any where else, cause you are among strangers, formal, cold, gallus polite, and as thick in the head-piece as a puncheon. You hante nothin’ to do yourself and they never have nothin’ to do; they don’t know nothin’ about America, and don’t want to. Your talk don’t interest them, and they can’t talk to interest nobody but themselves; all you’ve got to do, is to pull out your watch and see how time goes; how much of the day is left, and then go to the winder and see how the sky looks, and whether there is any chance of holdin’ up or no. Well, that time I went to bed a little airlier than common, for I felt considerable sleepy, and considerable strange too; so as soon as I cleverly could, I off and turned in.
“Well I am an airly riser myself. I always was from a boy, so I waked up jist about the time when day ought to break, and was a thinkin’ to get up; but the shutters was too, and it was as dark as ink in the room, and I heer’d it rainin’ away for dear life. ‘So,’ sais I to myself, ‘what the dogs is the use of gittin’ up so airly? I can’t get out and get a smoke, and I can’t do nothin’ here; so here goes for a second nap.’ Well I was soon off agin in a most a beautiful of a snore, when all at once I heard thump-thump agin the shutter—and the most horrid noise I ever heerd since I was raised; it was sunthin’ quite onairthly.
“‘Hallo!’ says I to myself, ‘what in natur is all this hubbub about? Can this here confounded old house be harnted? Is them spirits that’s jabbering gibberish there, or is I wide awake or no?’ So I sets right up on my hind legs in bed, rubs my eyes, opens my ears and listens agin, when whop went every shutter agin, with a dead heavy sound, like somethin’ or another thrown agin ‘em, or fallin’ agin ‘em, and then comes the unknown tongues in discord chorus like. Sais I, ‘I know now, it’s them cussed navigators. They’ve besot the house, and are a givin’ lip to frighten folks. It’s regular banditti.’
“So I jist hops out of bed, and feels for my trunk, and outs with my talkin’ irons, that was all ready loaded, pokes my way to the winder—shoves the sash up and outs with the shutter, ready to let slip among ‘em. And what do you think it was?—Hundreds and hundreds of them nasty, dirty, filthy, ugly, black devils of rooks, located in the trees at the back eend of the house. Old Nick couldn’t have slept near ‘em; caw caw, caw, all mixt up together in one jumble of a sound, like “jawe.”
“You black, evil-lookin’, foul-mouthed villains,’ sais I, ‘I’d like no better sport than jist to sit here, all this blessed day with these pistols, and drop you one arter another, I know.’ But they was pets, was them rooks, and of course like all pets, everlastin’ nuisances to every body else.
“Well, when a man’s in a feeze, there’s no more sleep that hitch; so I dresses and sits up; but what was I to do? It was jist half past four, and as it was a rainin’ like every thing, I know’d breakfast wouldn’t be ready till eleven o’clock, for nobody wouldn’t get up if they could help it—they wouldn’t be such fools; so there was jail for six hours and a half.
“Well, I walked up and down the room, as easy as I could, not to waken folks; but three steps and a round turn makes you kinder dizzy, so I sits down again to chaw the cud of vexation.