[LES MANTEAUX.]
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A COMICAL ADVENTURE.
As a sort of proëmium to the relation of the following adventure, I must preadmonish my readers, that I have always entertained a monstrous aversion to being roused from a comfortable sleep, by the appalling cry of “murder.” Heaven defend us! the very thought of such matters, even in broad day-light, causes a queer sensation about one’s throat and fifth rib: but at the solemn hour of midnight,—“just as the clock strikes twelve,”—when the winds are howling, and casements creaking, with all the other paraphernalia of a portentous night (vide ‘Mysteries of Udolpho’)—oh! it festers up the faculties, and acts as a scare-crow to the senses. Having premised thus much, and not in the least doubting that I have touched a sympathetic string in every bosom, I will forthwith proceed to relate my adventure.
Those who have travelled in the north of Scotland, may perchance recollect the road between Kincardine and Dingwall. On the right, stands a decently snug tenement, from which a swinging appendage announces to all peregrinators, that excellent entertainment is there provided for “man and beast.” In those parts it was my fortune to be travelling, on a bleak November evening, with no remarkably near prospect of supper or bed, when my eyes were suddenly gladdened by the appearance of the afore-mentioned sign; and so, it appears, were those of my horse, for without receiving previous notice from me, he instinctively halted at the door. I alighted, and after a comfortable supper, found myself snugly deposited in bed, next floor but one to the sky, the other floors being pre-engaged. But scarcely had gentle sleep diffused its balm over my eyelids, when I was aroused by a horrible confusion of noises in an adjoining apartment, from which I was separated only by a slight partition. First, I heard sundry stampings, and divers violent exclamations; then I plainly distinguished halfstifled cries of murder, and, at last, the groans of one, as it were, in his last agony. I was on my feet in the twinkling of an eye, and the reader may imagine that there was no occasion to make use of my hands in doffing my night-cap; the first sound of the word “murder” caused that to deposit itself very quietly on my pillow. My first movement was towards the door, from which I as quickly retreated, on discovering a murderous-looking person through the half-opened door of the next apartment; not, however, before I had uttered a yell loud enough to rouse all the inmates of the house. I next made towards the window, but there saw nothing, save a fearful profundity, which, I was well aware, was terminated by a yard, paved with rough stones.‘Twas agony.