courtyard. The room was thus rendered independent, so to speak, of the
rest of the house. The occupant might lock the door communicating with the
adjoining chamber, and go and come by the other as he pleased. As for the
courtyard, part of it had formerly been used as a stable, with stalls for
three horses; these were now transferred to the other end of the mansion,
though the stable, of course, remained; and it was necessary to go through
the stable in order to get to the covered flight of steps.

It may be remembered that Archibald, in what we may term his soporific
period, had manifested a strong, although entirely irrational, repugnance
to this east chamber. Perhaps he had been conscious of presences there
which were imperceptible to normal and healthy senses! Be that as it may,
he got bravely over his folly afterward, and in his twelfth year (his
third, Sir Clarence would have called it) he permanently took up his
quarters there, and would admit no "women" except as a special favor. In
those days, when people were still, more or less, prone to superstition,
it was not every boy who would have enjoyed the sensation of spending his
nights in so isolated a situation; for the right wing was almost entirely
unoccupied on this floor. But Archibald appears to have been singularly
free from fear, whether of the natural or of the supernatural. He
collected together all his boyish _penates_--his gun, his sword, his
fishing-rods, and his riding-whips, and arranged them about the walls. He
swept down the cobwebs from windows and ceiling; turned out of doors a lot
of miscellaneous lumber that had insensibly collected there during the
last half century; lugged in a few comfortable broad-bottomed chairs and
stanch old tables; set up a bookshelf containing Walton's "Complete
Angler," "Dialogues of Devils," "Arabian Nights," Miss Burney's "Evelina,"
and other equally fashionable and ingenious works; kindled a great fire on
the broad hearth; and, upon the whole, rendered the aspect of things more
comfortable than would have been anticipated. The room itself was long,