begins. My father and mother had both been dead for years, and I boarded
with my aunt, Miss Arnold, who was kind to me in her own fashion, but too
strict and precise ever to make me love her.

I shall first speak of one evening in the fall of the year 1757. It must
have been late in October, though I have forgotten the exact date, and I
sat in the little front parlour reading after tea. My aunt had few books;
a Bible, a Common Prayer, and some volumes of sermons are all that I can
recollect now; but the Reverend Mr. Glennie, who taught us village
children, had lent me a story-book, full of interest and adventure,
called the _Arabian Nights Entertainment_. At last the light began to
fail, and I was nothing loth to leave off reading for several reasons;
as, first, the parlour was a chilly room with horse-hair chairs and sofa,
and only a coloured-paper screen in the grate, for my aunt did not allow
a fire till the first of November; second, there was a rank smell of
molten tallow in the house, for my aunt was dipping winter candles on
frames in the back kitchen; third, I had reached a part in the _Arabian
Nights_ which tightened my breath and made me wish to leave off reading
for very anxiousness of expectation. It was that point in the story of
the 'Wonderful Lamp', where the false uncle lets fall a stone that seals
the mouth of the underground chamber; and immures the boy, Aladdin, in
the darkness, because he would not give up the lamp till he stood safe on
the surface again. This scene reminded me of one of those dreadful
nightmares, where we dream we are shut in a little room, the walls of
which are closing in upon us, and so impressed me that the memory of it
served as a warning in an adventure that befell me later on. So I gave up
reading and stepped out into the street. It was a poor street at best,
though once, no doubt, it had been finer. Now, there were not two hundred
souls in Moonfleet, and yet the houses that held them straggled sadly
over half a mile, lying at intervals along either side of the road.