486 Recollections of a Night of Fever. [May, 
every danger—she, too, was busy amongst them, urging on the work, 
and giving her directions to those who were prompt enough of them- 
selves without her assistance. It was evidently a labour of love to all 
concerned in it. 
At length their task was finished ; not a nail, not a screw, was want- 
ing ; every thing was ready but the corse to put in it. 
At the striking of the last blow, the owl whooped thrice; and there 
was a flapping of wings, and the beating of some hard, horny substance 
against the window. 
“ He is here !” said one of the men, drawing back the curtain. 
And there, indeed, was a monstrous owl, staring at me with his red 
eyes, and beating the glass impatiently with his wings. The cricket 
answered from the hearth with a shriller cry ; and the death-watch by 
the side of my bed was louder and faster in his ominous clicking. 
A deep silence followed. Nothing, for a few minutes, was heard in the 
chamber but my own breathing, which fear had rendered hard and 
hurried. The funereal figures stood with uplifted hammers, like men 
in anxious and momentary expectation ; and even the old hag, though 
her coarse features were distorted with the workings of impatience, yet 
remained silent. 
Again the owl whooped, striking the window so furiously that it rat- 
tled in the frame; and again the cricket cried, and the death-watch 
answered as before. At these signs of increasing impatience, he who 
had drawn the curtain spoke again :— 
“ Master ! shall I toll the bell? The owl Has whooped,—the cricket 
cried,—and the death-watch called.” 
«Not yet,’ was the answer. “It is not quite twelve; the clock 
must strike first.—Be still, Sir Urian,” he added, turning to the bird of © 
night, who flapped his pinions yet more vehemently at the delay ;— — 
“ your time is not yet come.” 
At this rebuke, the owl folded his wings upon his breast, and the 
cricket and the death-watch hushed their cry. 
But even this respite, short as it was, seemed too long for the hag. 
She could not wait for the fated hour, when, as it seemed, death would 
of himself visit me, but must needs anticipate his coming, though the 
hand of the time-piece on the table pointed to the last quarter before’ 
twelve. Filling a cup from one of the many phials, she came to my bed- 
side, and croaked out, “ It is time; drink, and die!” But I stoutly 
refused the draught so ominously presented. The hag persisted, uttering 
dreadful, half-intelligible menaces ; and, in the very desperation of ter- 
ror, I struggled as for life, and endeavoured to dash down the chalice. | 
But I was a mere child in her hands. She forced me back upon my 
pillow with a strength that to my feebleness seemed gigantic, and poured 
the poison down my throat in spite of my utmost resistance. 
No sooner was it swallowed than it crept like ice through my veins, 
freezing up life as it stole on, drop by drop, and inch by inch, the 
numbness beginning at my feet, and mounting upward till it curdle 
at my heart. It must not, however, be supposed that I was silent durin 
this deadly march of the poison; on the contrary, my rage was, at lea: 
equal to my terror ; and their united influence was powerful enough 
loosen the bonds that had hitherto kept my tongue tied, when to hav 
spoken would have been some relief to the overwhelming sense of agony. 
I poured forth the bitterness of my heart in curses that staggered the 
