commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades
upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not
what dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves, and look up
with I know not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when
all over the house I was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky
stared sorrowfully at me, where the birds passed, and the ivy
rustled, and the stains of winter weather blotched the rotten
floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of staircase, into
which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled, butterflies
fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken door-ways;
when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents, and sights of
fresh green growth, and ever-renewing life, that I had never
dreamed of, - I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of
these things as my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of
Hoghton Towers?

I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have
I anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked
sorrowfully at me; that they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without
pity for me, 'Alas! poor worldly little devil!'

There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller
pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They
were scuffling for some prey that was there; and, when they started
and hid themselves close together in the dark, I thought of the old
life (it had grown old already) in the cellar.

How not to be this worldly little devil? how not to have a
repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a
corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself, and