“There was only an old woman at home when we stopped at the door, and I fancied she looked rather too well pleased when we asked if she could accommodate us for the night.  I must confess to you, my dear children, I felt rather nervous after the fright of that afternoon; I, who used to boast that I was ignorant of the fact of possessing such a thing as nerves; but I do think I must have been nervous, for very little things troubled me that evening, and my imagination had never been so busy before.  In a very few moments, an old man, and three strapping, rough-looking youths, entered, with their axes over their shoulders, and dripping with rain; and now I began to imagine that I saw suspicious glances passing between these young men, and I certainly heard a long whispered conversation pass between two of them and the old woman in the next room.  I looked towards my old friend the clergyman; but he, good, unsuspicious old soul, was nodding in his chair by the log fire.  I grew more and more uncomfortable, and heartily wished we had jogged on in the pelting rain, rather than trust ourselves to such very questionable hospitality.  One thing I made up my mind to, which was this—­that I would not close my eyes to sleep that night, but would keep on the watch for whatever might happen.”

“The old woman gave us a very comfortable supper, and soon afterwards she asked me if I would like to go to bed.  Not liking to show any distrust of my hosts, I assented with apparent readiness, and followed the old woman into a hall, and up a rude ladder, which I should have found it very difficult to mount had it not been for my early exercise in this kind of gymnastics, when searching for hen’s eggs in the barn, at my New England home.”

“At the head of the ladder was a small passageway, from which we entered the room which was to be my sleeping apartment.  Whether there had ever been any door to this room or not I do not know; certain it is there was no door now; the only other room I could perceive in the upper part of the house, was a sort of a granary filled with bins to hold different kinds of grain.”

“’Is the old gentleman with whom I came, to sleep in this part of the house?’ I asked in as careless a tone as I could assume.”

“‘No, he sleeps in the loft of the other part where the boys sleep;’ answered the old woman, and then looking at me with a grin which I thought gave her the appearance of an ugly old hag, she said, ’Why ye ain’t afeard on us, be ye?’”

“’I told her I had had quite a fright that day, and felt a little nervous.’”

“‘Well,’ said she, ’ye can just go to sleep without any frights here.  We shan’t do ye no harm, I reckon,’ and she left me and descended the ladder.”