“Don’t hurt me!” said Magdalen, faintly, as old Mazey staggered up to the chair, and took her by the wrist again.  “I’m frightened, Mr. Mazey—­I’m dreadfully frightened.”

“Hurt you?” repeated the veteran.  “I’m a deal too fond of you—­and more shame for me at my age!—­to hurt you.  If I let go of your wrist, will you walk straight before me, where I can see you all the way?  Will you be a good girl, and walk straight up to your own door?”

Magdalen gave the promise required of her—­gave it with an eager longing to reach the refuge of her room.  She rose, and tried to take the candle from the bureau, but old Mazey’s cunning hand was too quick for her.  “Let the candle be,” said the veteran, winking in momentary forgetfulness of his responsible position.  “You’re a trifle quicker on your legs than I am, my dear, and you might leave me in the lurch, if I don’t carry the light.”

They returned to the inhabited side of the house.  Staggering after Magdalen, with the basket of keys in one hand and the candle in the other, old Mazey sorrowfully compared her figure with the straightness of the poplar, and her disposition with the crookedness of Sin, all the way across “Freeze-your-Bones,” and all the way upstairs to her own door.  Arrived at that destination, he peremptorily refused to give her the candle until he had first seen her safely inside the room.  The conditions being complied with, he resigned the light with one hand, and made a dash with the other at the key, drew it from the inside of the lock, and instantly closed the door.  Magdalen heard him outside chuckling over his own dexterity, and fitting the key into the lock again with infinite difficulty.  At last he secured the door, with a deep grunt of relief.  “There she is safe!” Magdalen heard him say, in regretful soliloquy.  “As fine a girl as ever I sat eyes on.  What a pity! what a pity!”

The last sounds of his voice died out in the distance; and she was left alone in her room.

Holding fast by the banister, old Mazey made his way down to the corridor on the second floor, in which a night light was always burning.  He advanced to the truckle-bed, and, steadying himself against the opposite wall, looked at it attentively.  Prolonged contemplation of his own resting-place for the night apparently failed to satisfy him.  He shook his head ominously, and, taking from the side-pocket of his great-coat a pair of old patched slippers, surveyed them with an aspect of illimitable doubt.  “I’m all abroad to-night,” he mumbled to himself.  “Troubled in my mind—­that’s what it is—­troubled in my mind.”