“I am in no humor for trifling to-night,” said Anthony, stopping and glancing up at the bird, who sat motionless on a decayed branch a few yards above his head.  “If you are afraid of such sounds, you can soon silence that for ever.”

“It would require a good eye, and an excellent fowling-piece, to bring down the black gentleman from his lofty perch.  I have heard that you, Mr. Hurdlestone, are accounted a capital shot, far before your cousin Godfrey.  I wish you would just give me a trial of your skill.”

“Nonsense!” muttered Anthony.  “The bird’s only a few yards above us.  A pistol would bring him down.”

“I should like to see it done,” said Mathews, with a grin.  “Here, sir, take my gun.”

Impatient of interruption, and anxious to get rid of the company of a man whose presence he loathed, Anthony drew one of the pistols from his breast pocket, and, taking a deliberate aim at the bird, he fired, and the raven fell dead at his feet.  Picking it up, and tossing it over to Mathews, he said—­“Do you believe me now?  Pshaw! it was not worth staining my hands and clothes with blood for such a paltry prize.”

Mathews laughed heartily at this speech; but there was something so revolting in the tones of his mirth, that Anthony quickened his pace to avoid its painful repetition.  A few minutes more brought him in sight of the miser’s cottage.  No light gleamed from the broken casement, and both the door and the window of the hovel were wide open, and flapping in the night wind.  Surprised at a circumstance so unusual, Anthony hastily entered the house.  The first object that met his sight rivetted him to the threshold.

The moon threw a broad line of silver light into the dusty worm-eaten apartment, and danced and gleamed in horrid mockery upon a stream of dark liquid which was slowly spreading itself over the floor.  And there, extended upon the brick pavement, his features shockingly distorted, his hands still clenched, and his white locks dabbled in blood, lay the cold, mutilated form of his father.

Overpowered with horror, unable to advance or retreat, Anthony continued to gaze upon the horrid spectacle, until the hair stiffened upon his head, and a cold perspiration bedewed all his limbs.

Still as he gazed he fancied that the clenched hands moved, that a bitter smile writhed the thin parted lips of the dead; and influenced by a strange fascination, against which he struggled in vain, he continued to watch the ghastly countenance, until horror and astonishment involved every other object in misty obscurity.