The ancient penmanship and curious contents
of the faded pages before me carried my thoughts backward into the old
Colonial times, with their rigid social distinctions, lofty manners,
and ill-concealed superstition; and I mused upon grim old magistrates,
wizened witches, stately dames, rugged Indian-fighters, and all
their strange doings and sayings in the ancient days, until, between
drowsiness and imagining, I fell into a tangled labyrinth of romance,
history, and reverie.
Then all at once I seemed half to awake, and fell into one of those fits
of foolish nervous apprehension to which many even of the coolest and
bravest are liable in deep solitude and darkness,--and if they, how much
more an excitable person like myself! My heart throbbed for no reason,
and, sitting with my head bowed down upon my hands, I fancied the most
impossible dangers,--of men taking aim at me with the antique firearms
out of the far dark corners, or casting heavy weights upon me through
the skylight overhead. How easily, I fancied, could it happen. Did not
the cellar-door open just now?
I half arose, almost frightened. I believe I should have taken an old
rapier and a light and gone to look, but for very shame. And besides,
there were two thick floors between me and the door, and that itself was
set in the heavy wall between the cellar of this wing of the building
and that under its main body; so that if it had been opened, I could not
have heard it.
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