Nocturnal Terrors. 31 



rest and with a different staircase. There was 

 a closet in this room in which my father kept 

 his fowling pieces, fishing tackle, and golf clubs, 

 and a long garret overhead was filled with 

 presses and stores of all kinds, among other things 

 a number of large cheeses were on a board slnng 

 by ropes to the rafters. One night I had put 

 out my candle and was fast asleep, when I was 

 awakened by a violent crash, and then a rolling noise 

 over my head. Now the room was said to be 

 haunted, so that the servants would not sleep in it. 

 I was desperate, for there was no bell I groped 

 my way to the closet lucifer matches were un- 

 known in those days I seized one of the golf clubs, 

 which are shod with iron, and thundered on the bed- 

 room door till I brought my father, followed by 

 the whole household, to my aid. It was found 

 that the rats had gnawed through the ropes by 

 which the cheeses were suspended, so that the crash 

 and rolling were accounted for, and I was scolded 

 for making such an uproar. 



Children suffer much misery by being left alone in 

 the dark When I was very young I was sent to bed at 

 eight or nine o'clock, and the maid who slept in the 

 room went away as soon as I was in bed, leaving 

 me alone in the dark till she came to bed herself. 

 All that time I was in an agony of fear of something 



