"So I think: you have no ghost, then?"

"None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.

"Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?"

"I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather

a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is

the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now."

"Yes--'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered.

"Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?" for she was moving away.

"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?" I

followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence

by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was

now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests.

Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the

grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely

girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park,

dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a

path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with

foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all

reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a

propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the

scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from

it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the

ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of

blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of

grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre,

and over which I had been gazing with delight.

Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by

drift of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to

descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage

to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third

storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the

far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all

shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard's castle.

While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so

still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh;

distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for

an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct,

it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to

wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in

one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents

issued.




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