142 THE MISERIES OF A TENDER-EARED MAN. 



door, and the storm seemed to bid defiance to any attempt of that 

 nature. Certain it was that, with such a noise, sleep I should 

 get none; and, as a last resource, I determined to clothe myself 

 and ''silence that dreadful bell" at least. 



I descended : such a night ! the cold was intense; and, spite 

 of my great caution, having, in addition to my own habiliments, 

 enveloped myself in a pair of Whitney blankets, Esquimaux-like, 

 I got wet to the skin ; however, I secured the door and bell, by 

 tying fast the one, and purloining the clapper of the other, and 

 returned hurriedly to my chamber, where I was not very long in 

 securing a retreat within my former resting place. Scarcely had 

 the cheering warmth of the bed made amends to me for the task 

 I had so satisfactorily completed, and the discomfiture which it 

 had occasioned me, and the sweet slumbers of repose brushed 

 the sad recollections of disquiet from my brain, than I was salu- 

 ted by a still more doleful noise; my heart sickened at the sound, 

 for I had innocently been the main instigator of it, the cause was 

 as follows, the effect may be easily anticipated. On my return 

 to my apartment, having put a palliative on the garden gate and 

 bell, as I entered the house, the great dog, to whose surveillance 

 the nightly guardianship of the premises was intrusted, ran, unper- 

 ceived by me, into the garden, and I, with the greatest care, had 

 unheedingly, bolted him out; the result was, as might be expect- 

 ed, when I had contrived to get comfortably warm, after no small 

 time, tliis most tormenting brute set up such a horrible yelling 

 and howling that a cold sweat burst out at every pore of my 

 agonized frame ; I sprang out of bed in a paroxysm of fury, 

 raised the sash with a maniac's energy, and bellowed on the 

 offending culprit to the utmost extent my lungs would admit of; 

 away went tooth-brush and pen-knife; and, instead of frightening 

 the animal, it served to increase the uproar ten-fold, as a number 

 of yelping curs in the neigbourhood joined in the concert with 

 such determined and unending zeal, that to sleep was impossible, 

 and, for the remainder of the night, I lay in a much more un- 

 comfortable position than ever yet did a heretic, whilst the bro- 

 thers of the Holy Inquisition were sending him to another world 

 through the instrumentality of the rack. 



G. P. H. 



