"I expected to find it lined with fresh faces. I was mistaken. The party assembled was the same, without diminution or addition, which I had quitted the preceding evening. After an interchange of civilities I hazarded an inquiry:—
"'Where are the new arrivals?'
"'There are no new arrivals,' said my hostess; 'I hope you are not tired of us already?'
"'You allude to an utter impossibility,' was my rejoinder; 'but beyond all doubt two carriages drove up to the main entrance early this morning.'
"'You are our only guest,' observed my hostess with an air of peculiar gravity, and even perceptible annoyance in her manner.
"'You see us as we are, a quiet family party, Mr. Newburgh,' observed the youngest daughter hastily, and then adroitly changed the conversation.
"'Oh,' thought I, 'I'm on unsafe ground. Some disagreeable people, self-invited, and dismissed at all hazards. Very well. Moi c'est égal! What concern have I with the family arrangements of another?'
"The second night of my visit drew on. I slept well and soundly till about three in the morning, when my slumbers were suddenly broken by a rapid rush of horsemen across the lawn, directly under my dressing-room window. 'Hunting at three in the morning is a rank absurdity,' was my comment; 'but if I ever heard the sound of horses and horsemen I did then. The park gates must have been left open, and the farm horses have broken loose. Utter destruction to the lawn, and to the flower beds, and the glorious rhododendrons! What negligent menials.' And while murmuring my abhorrence of such atrocious carelessness, and my deep regret at its results, my eyes closed. The next morning I peeped with apprehension from my window, on what I presumed would prove a scene of devastation. All was fair and smiling, gaze where I would. Here was the trim and smoothly shaven lawn—there the blooming parterre—beyond the early flowering shrubs not a twig, not a leaf injured. I left my room in amazement.
"Below, the papers had arrived. They gave the details of another and decisive battle. That, and an expedition during the morning to a neighboring Roman encampment, banished the horsemen of the preceding night, nor did they recur till I found myself in my room, exhausted and bent down with pain, at eleven. The fact was I had played the fool and overwalked myself, and my avenger, the bullet, began to remind me of his presence in my system. For three mortal hours no poor wretch, save in his death struggle, endured greater agony than I did. At last, a 'compassion that never faileth,' bestowed on me an interval of ease, and I slept. Heavily, I imagine, since for some time a strange booming noise droned continuously in my ears before it waked me. At last I was roused. I listened. The sound was like nothing I had ever heard before. It seemed as if a heavy-sledge hammer, or huge wooden mallet, carefully muffled in wadding, was at work in the room below me. The stable clock struck four. 'No mason,' thought I, 'no mason would commence his day's work at four in the morning. Burglars, perhaps,' and I resolved to give alarm. The noise suddenly ceased, and some three minutes afterward as suddenly recommenced in the children's play-room immediately above me. 'Be they whom they may they shall be disturbed.' And I began to dress in the dark with all possible expedition. Some partial progress was made when the noise ceased in the upper room and descended forthwith to my own. An instant afterward it seemed to proceed from the library. In about twenty minutes it ceased altogether.
"'No mason, no burglar,' was my conclusion. 'This noise has nothing in common with either the one or the other. Did my old guide speak accurately when he called this "The House of Mystery?" Whether it be such or no, it is not the house for me. I can't sleep in it. I must flit; and I will do so with the morning's light.'