"
We shook hands on our bargain, and catching up a candlestick, he led
the way from the room.
Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down the
silent staircase. In the hall he paused to stand on tiptoe, and turn
up the lamp, which was burning low. As he did so, I found time to
fling a glance at my old enemy, the mastiff. He lay as I had first
seen him--a stuffed dog, if ever there was one. "Decidedly," thought
I, "my wits are to seek, to-night;" and with the same, a sudden
suspicion made me turn to my conductor, who had advanced to the
left-hand door, and was waiting for me, with hand on the knob.
"One moment," I said; "this is all very pretty, but how am I to know
you're not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside to
lay me by the heels?"
"I'm afraid," was his answer, "you must be content with my word, as
a gentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a
syllable about the circumstances of your visit. However, if you
choose, we will return upstairs."
"No; I'll trust you," said I; and he opened the door.
It led into a broad passage, paved with slate, upon which three or
four rooms opened. He paused by the second, and ushered me into a
sleeping-chamber which, though narrow, was comfortable enough--a vast
improvement, at any rate, on the mumper's lodgings I had been used to
for many months past.
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