air was moist, warm, and oppressive. It weighed heavily alike on mind
and body. I was crippled by my wound,--the journey was longer than my
strength could sustain much further,--still I resolved to persevere, for
I longed to be again in my father's house; and I fancied were I once
there, that the burning in my bosom would abate.

During my absence in India, the new road across the common had been
opened. By the time I reached it, the night was closed in,--a dull,
starless, breezeless, dumb, sluggish, and unwholesome night; and those
things which still retained in their shapes some blackness, deeper
than the darkness, seemed, as I slowly passed by, to be endowed with
mysterious intelligence, with which my spirit would have held communion
but for dread.

While I was frozen with the influence of this dreadful phantasy, I saw
a pale, glimmering, ineffectual light rising before me. It was neither
lamp, fire, nor candle; and though like, it was not yet flame. I took
it at first for the lustre of a reflection from some unseen light,
and I walked towards it, in the hope of finding a cottage or an
alehouse, where I might obtain some refreshment and a little rest.
I advanced,--its form enlarged, but its beam became no brighter;
and the horror, which had for a moment left me when it was first
discovered, returned with overwhelming power. I rushed forward, but soon
halted,--for I saw that it hung in the air, and as I approached, that it
began to take a ghastly and spectral form! I discerned the lineaments
of a head, and the hideous outlines of a shapeless anatomy. I stood
rivetted to the spot; for I thought that I saw behind it, a dark and
vast thing, in whose hand it was held forth. In that moment, a voice
said,--"It is Winlaw the murderer; his bones often, in the moist summer
nights, shine out in this way; it is thought to be an acknowledgment