“Mary Ann, what’s the use in talkin’ about it?”

“Do as you like,” she snapped back; “only I a’n’t a-goin’ to be blamed for your doin’s.  The stranger’ll find out, soon enough.”

“You find this life rather lonely, I should think,” I remarked, with a view of giving the conversation a different turn.

“Lonely!” she repeated, jerking out a fragment of malicious laughter.  “It’s lonely enough in the daytime, Goodness knows; but you’ll have your fill o’ company afore mornin’.”

With that, she threw a defiant glance at her husband.

“Fact is,” said he, shrinking from her eye, “we’re sort o’ troubled with noises at night.  P’raps you’ll be skeered, but it’s no more ’n noise,—­onpleasant, but never hurts nothin’.”

“You don’t mean to say this shanty is haunted?” I asked.

“Well,—­yes:  some folks ‘d call it so.  There is noises an’ things goin’ on, but you can’t see nobody.”

“Oh, if that is all,” said I, “you need not be concerned on my account.  Nothing is so strange, but the cause of it can be discovered.”

Again the man heaved a deep sigh.  The woman said, in rather a milder tone,—­

“What’s the good o’ knowin’ what makes it, when you can’t stop it?”

As I was neither sleepy nor fatigued, this information was rather welcome than otherwise.  I had full confidence in my own courage; and if anything should happen, it would make a capital story for my first New-York supper.  I saw there was but one bed, and a small straw mattress on the floor beside it for the boy, and therefore declared that I should sleep on the bench, wrapped in my cloak.  Neither objected to this, and they presently retired.  I determined, however, to keep awake as long as possible.  I threw a fresh log on the fire, lit another cigar, made a few entries in my note-book, and finally took the “Iron Mask” of Dumas from my valise, and tried to read by the wavering flashes of the fire.

In this manner another hour passed away.  The deep breathing—­not to say snoring—­from the recess indicated that my hosts were sound asleep, and the monotonous whistle of the wind around the shanty began to exercise a lulling influence on my own senses.  Wrapping myself in my cloak, with my valise for a pillow, I stretched myself out on the bench, and strove to keep my mind occupied with conjectures concerning the sleeping family.  Furthermore, I recalled all the stories of ghosts and haunted houses which I had ever heard, constructed explanations for such as were still unsolved, and, so far from feeling any alarm, desired nothing so much as that the supernatural performances might commence.