that murder would not rest; and so strongly did this impression gain upon him, that in the fitful howling of the storm, and in its wild wailing and dying sobs among the trees and hedges, as he went along, he thought he could distinguish sounds that belonged not to this life.  Still he proceeded, his terrors thus translating, as it were, the noisy conflict of the elements into the voices of the dead, or thanking Heaven that the strong winds brought him to a calmer sense of his position, by the necessity that they imposed of preserving himself against their violence.  In this anomalous state he advanced, until he came to a grove of old beeches that grew at the foot of one of the hill-ranges we have described, and here the noises he heard were not calculated to diminish his terrors.  As the huge trees were tossed and swung about in the gloomy moonlight, his ears were assailed by a variety of wild sounds which had never reached them before.  The deep and repeated crashes of the tempest, as it raged among them, was accompanied by a frightful repetition of hoarse moanings, muffled groans, and wild unearthly shrieks, which encountered him from a thousand quarters in the grove, and he began to feel that horrible excitement which is known to be occasioned by the mere transition from extreme cowardice to reckless indifference.

Still he advanced homewards, repeating his prayers with singular energy, his head uncovered notwithstanding the severity of the night, and the rain pouring in torrents upon him, when he found it necessary to cross a level of rough land, at all times damp and marshy, but in consequence of the rains of the season, now a perfect morass.  Over this he had advanced about half a mile, and got beyond the frightful noises of the woods, when some large object rose into the air from a clump of plashy rushes before him, and shot along the blast, uttering a booming sound, so loud and stunning that he stood riveted to the earth.  The noise resembled that which sometimes proceeds from a humming-top, if a person could suppose one made upon such a gigantic scale as to produce the deep and hollow buzz which this being emitted.  Nothing could now convince him that he was not surrounded by spirits, and he felt confident that the voice of undiscovered murder was groaning on the blast—­shrieking, as it were, for vengeance in the terrible voice of the tempest.  He once more blessed himself, repeated a fresh prayer, and struggled forward, weak, and nearly exhausted, until at length he reached the village adjoining which his master, Dick o’ the Grange, resided.

The winds now, and for some minutes previously, had begun to fall, and the lulls in the storm were calmer and more frequent, as well as longer in duration.  Hanlon proceeded to his master’s, and peering through the shutters, discovered that the servants had not yet retired to rest; then bending his steps further up the village, he soon reached a small isolated cabin, at the door of which he knocked, and in due time was admitted by a thin, tall female.