ANTICIPATED ILL. 401 



as in its natural proportions on the paper ; then, swimming in 

 a haze of misty moonshine, it seemed endowed with life and 

 motion was magnified multiplied into a loathsome swarm 

 a dark, besetting, horrifying legion, which rose, some on wing, 

 some crawling round him glared at him with their horny 

 eyes from beneath their overlapping corselets, waved their long 

 antennae, and thrust their spiny arms into his very face. Ca- 

 leb had seen enough, and attempted, his few teeth chattering, 

 and his knobby knees knocking, to effect his exit from the 

 library ; had almost reached the door, when a cold arresting 

 hand seemed laid upon his shoulder, and he fell, as we had 

 found him, prostrate on the floor. 



" Master is dead," said Dolly, after hearing the above rela- 

 tion. " Master is dead ; I know it;" and her superstitious 

 awe giving way presently to heart-breaking sorrow, she burst 

 into an agony of tears. " Why," remonstrated Mr. Caligraph, 

 tl I do not say I saw its face only its back in the very coat 

 that now hangs empty in the libery ; besides, Mrs. Dove, you 

 know, as I have before observed, * superstition is the daugh- 

 ter of ' " but here the words died upon his lips ; and the 

 mechanic amanuensis grew from that night more thoughtful 

 than before, and never stayed in the ^book-room, or volun- 

 teered to visit it after dark or dusk. 



If news of death were really on their road to us, as our 

 Dove was now thoroughly persuaded, they travelled, like a 

 hearse, slowly. Tidings none at all reached us of my uncle ; 



