independent and possibly dangerous lodger or even colony, within the
walls of the same old building.

The light very soon appeared again, steadier and somewhat brighter, in
the same chamber. Again old Laurence buckled on his armour, swearing
ominously to himself, and this time bent in earnest upon conflict. The
young ladies watched in thrilling suspense from the great window in
_their_ stronghold, looking diagonally across the court. But as
Laurence, who had entered the massive range of buildings opposite, might
be supposed to be approaching the chamber from which this ill-omened
glare proceeded, it steadily waned, finally disappearing altogether,
just a few seconds before his voice was heard shouting from the arched
window to know which way the light had gone.

This lighting up of the great chamber of the Bell Tower grew at last to
be of frequent and almost continual recurrence. It was, there, long ago,
in times of trouble and danger, that the De Lacys of those evil days
used to sit in feudal judgment upon captive adversaries, and, as
tradition alleged, often gave them no more time for shrift and prayer,
than it needed to mount to the battlement of the turret over-head, from
which they were forthwith hung by the necks, for a caveat and admonition
to all evil disposed persons viewing the same from the country beneath.

Old Laurence observed these mysterious glimmerings with an evil and an
anxious eye, and many and various were the stratagems he tried, but in
vain, to surprise the audacious intruders. It is, however, I believe, a
fact that no phenomenon, no matter how startling at first, if prosecuted
with tolerable regularity, and unattended with any new circumstances of
terror, will very long continue to excite alarm or even wonder.