than agreeable.  I heard voices and footsteps in the hall.  The stairs creaked, and it was but too evident they were coming, and that with a most unerring and provoking perseverance.  Surely, thought I, these gentry have noses like the sleuth-hound; and I made no doubt but they would undeviatingly follow them into the very scene of my labours; and what excuse could I make for the havoc I had committed?  I stood stupefied, and unable to move.  The thoughts of being hauled neck and heels before the next justice, on a charge of housebreaking, or what not—­committed to prison—­tried, perhaps, and—­the sequel was more than even imagination durst conceive.  Recoiling in horror from the picture, it was with something like instinctive desperation that I flew to the little closet, and shut myself in, with all the speed and precision my fears would allow.  Sure enough the brutes were making the best of their way into the chamber, and every moment I expected they would track their victim to his hiding-place.  After a few moments of inconceivable agony, I was relieved at finding from their conversation that no notion was entertained, at present, of any witness to their proceedings.

“I tell thee, Gilbert, these rusty locks can keep nothing safe.  It’s but some few months since we were here, and thou knowest the doors were all fast.  The kitchen door-post is now as rotten as touchwood; no bolt will fasten it.”

“Nail it up,—­nail ’em all up,” growled Gilbert; “nobody’ll live here now; or else set fire to ’t.  It’ll make a rare bonfire to burn that ugly old will in.”

A boisterous laugh here broke from the remorseless Gilbert.  It fell upon my ear as something with which I had once been disagreeably familiar.  The voice of the first speaker, too, seemed the echo of one that had been heard in childhood.  A friendly chink permitted me to gain the information I sought; there stood my uncle and his trusty familiar.  In my youth I had contracted a somewhat unaccountable aversion to the latter personage.  I well remembered his downcast grey eye, deprived of its fellow; and the malignant pleasure he took in thwarting and disturbing my childish amusements.  This prepossessing Cyclop held a tinder-box, and was preparing to light a match.  My uncle’s figure I could not mistake:  a score of winters had cast their shadows on his brow since we had separated; but he still stood as he was wont—­tall, erect, and muscular, though age had slightly drooped his proud forehead; and I could discern his long-lapped waistcoat somewhat less conspicuous in front.  He was my mother’s brother, and the only surviving relation on whom I had any claim.  My fears were set at rest, but curiosity stole into their place.  I felt an irrepressible inclination to watch their proceedings, though eaves-dropping was a subterfuge that I abhorred.  I should, I am confident—­at least I hope so—­have immediately discovered myself, had not a single word which I had overheard prevented me.  The “will” to which they alluded might to me, perhaps, be an object of no trivial importance.