A single glance was sufficient to exhaust the resources of the empty
garret in which I found myself. Two or three old chairs piled in one
corner, a rusty stove or so, a heap of tattered and decaying
clothing, were all that met my gaze. Taking my way, then, at once to
the ladder, whose narrow ends projecting above a hole in the garret
floor, seemed to proffer the means of reaching the rooms below, I
proceeded to descend into what to my excited imagination looked like a
gulf of darkness. It proved, however, to be nothing more nor less
than an unlighted hall of small dimensions, with a stair-case at one
end and a door at the other, which, upon opening I found myself in a
large, square room whose immense four-post bedstead entirely denuded
of its usual accompaniments of bed and bolster at once struck my eye
and for a moment held it enchained. There were other articles in the
room; a disused bureau, a rocking chair, even a table, but nothing
had such a ghostly look as that antique bedstead with its curtains of
calico tied back over its naked framework, like rags draped from the
bare bones of a skeleton. Passing hurriedly by, I tried a closet door
or so, finding little, however, to reward my search; and eager to be
done with what was every moment becoming more and more drearisome, I
hastened across the floor to the front of the house where I found
another hall and a row of rooms that, while not entirely stripped of
furniture, were yet sufficiently barren to offer little encouragement
to my curiosity. One only, a small but not uncomfortable apartment,
showed any signs of having been occupied within a reasonable length of
time; and as I paused before its hastily spread bed, thrown together
as only a man would do it, and wondering why the room was so dark,
looked up and saw that the window was entirely covered by an old shawl
and a couple of heavy coats that had been hastily nailed across it, I
own I felt my hand go to my breast pocket almost as if I expected to
see the wild faces of the dreaded Schoenmakers start up all aglare