my head, and so I rose up and told Ingomar I believed I'd go to bed.
Preceded by that redoubtable barbarian and a flaring tallow candle, I
followed him up stairs to my room. It was the only single room he had,
he told me; he had built it for the convenience of married parties who
might stop here, but, that event not happening yet, he had left it half
furnished. It had cloth on one side, and large cracks on the other. The
wind, which always swept over Wingdam at night-time, puffed through the
apartment from different apertures. The window was too small for the
hole in the side of the house where it hung, and rattled noisily.
Everything looked cheerless and dispiriting. Before Ingomar left me,
he brought that "bar-skin," and throwing it over the solemn bier which
stood in one corner, told me he reckoned that would keep me warm, and
then bade me good night. I undressed myself, the light blowing out in
the middle of that ceremony, crawled under the "bar-skin," and tried to
compose myself to sleep.

But I was staringly wide awake. I heard the wind sweep down the
mountain-side, and toss the branches of the melancholy pine, and then
enter the house, and try all the doors along the passage. Sometimes
strong currents of air blew my hair all over the pillow, as with strange
whispering breaths. The green timber along the walls seemed to be
sprouting, and sent a dampness even through the "bar-skin." I felt like
Robinson Crusoe in his tree, with the ladder pulled up,--or like the
rocked baby of the nursery song. After lying awake half an hour, I
regretted having stopped at Wingdam; at the end of the third quarter, I
wished I had not gone to bed; and when a restless hour passed, I got up
and dressed myself. There had been a fire down in the big room. Perhaps
it was still burning. I opened the door and groped my way along the
passage, vocal with the snores of the Alemanni and the whistling of
the night wind; I partly fell down stairs, and at last entering the big