room, placed it in the window, sat down before the reluctant
instrument, and gave it a third swing. Then, my elbows on the sill, I
sat and watched it with growing awe, but growing determination as well.
Once more it showed signs of refusal; once more the forefinger of my
right hand administered impulse.

Something gave a crack inside the creature: away went the pendulum,
swinging with a will. I sat and gazed, almost horror-stricken. Ere many
moments had passed, the feeling of terror had risen to such a height
that, but for the very terror, I would have seized the pendulum in a
frantic grasp. I did not. On it went, and I sat looking. My dismay was
gradually subsiding.

I have learned since that a certain ancestor--or was he only a
great-uncle?--I forget--had a taste for mechanics, even to the craze of
the perpetual motion, and could work well in brass and iron. The
creature was probably some invention of his. It was a real marvel how,
after so many years of idleness, it could now go as it did. I confess,
as I contemplate the thing, I am in a puzzle, and almost fancy the
whole a dream. But let it pass. At worst, something of which this is
the sole representative residuum, wrought an effect on me which
embodies its cause thus, as I search for it in the past. And why should
not the individual life have its misty legends as well as that of
nations? From them, as from the golden and rosy clouds of morning,
dawns at last the true sun of its unquestionable history. Every boy has
his own fables, just as the Romes and the Englands of the world have
their Romuli and their Arthurs, their suckling wolves and their
granite-sheathed swords. Do they not reflect each other? I tell the
tale as 'tis left in me.