Alfred; or, The Adventures of a French Gentleman — page 113: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

94 ALFRED; OR ADVENTURES heat of no occasional fire repressed ; and the bedsteads were mouldering away as rapidly as disuse and worms could consume them. “ Well—what do you think of the bedchamber wherein. you must this night repose?” asked the farmer, holding up his candle to cast the light into as wide a circumference as possible. ‘¢ T see no reason why it should not be very comfortable,’ answered De Rosann. ‘‘ Nor I,”’ added Belle-Rose, with a yawn. ‘* J perceive you are fatigued,’ said Dorval, ‘* and desirous of a good night's rest. Stay one moment, and I will fetch your mattresses.” The farmer left the room as he uttered these words, and returned in a few minutes, laden with the necessary apparatus for making up the, beds. The arrangements were speedily completed ; and having wished our hero and his companion an undisturbed repose, he withdrew to his own apartment. No sooner had Louis Dorval closed the door of the haunted apartment, as it was called, than Belle-Rose hastily threw off his clothes, and took refuge against the damp air in his warm bed. De Rosann made two or three remarks relative to the singularity of their arrival at the very house in which Francois had been arrested; but a few unmeaning monosylla- bles were all the replies he could obtain. He therefore relinquished the unpleasant task of maintaining a conversation alone, and soon saw the utility of so doing; for a certain nasal music, emanating from Belle- Rose’s couch, made him aware of the attention which would be paid to his discourse. De Rosann himself did not experience the slightest inclination to sleep. A thousand ideas occupied his mind, and repelled the advance of slum- ber. He no longer felt fatigued with the effects of his day’s journey, nor did he once think of courting the charms of sleep by retiring to his bed. He recollected that in the identical chamber, where he was now seated, a murderer had reposed three and thirty years ago. Perhaps he had slept in the very bed destined to receive himself. De Rosann was not superstitious—he laughed in derision at the bare mention of a spirit, or an allusion to the possibility of the existence of ghosts—he believed that matter alone was visible, tangible, and capable of motion—he knew that when the organized body, called Man, had rendered up its life, sen- sations and organs performed their functions no longer, and that the decomposing clay could not return from the dark tomb to whose jaws it was consigned; and at the moment when he found himself alone, as it were—for Belle-Rose slept soundly—in the apartment that recalled a thousand terrible images to his mind, he did not dread the sudden ap- pearance of aught supernatural; but he felt a species of indescribable awe—an aversion to close his eyes—a nervousness that made him start at each trivial sound—which the bravest occasionally feel when in pecu- liar situations, and which are invariably experienced during a vigil by the side of a corpse. It was in vain that he endeavoured to change the subject of his reflections. Imagination is often obstinate, as well as fanciful; and we may occasionally essay to turn the rush of torrents from their course, or to roll back the Alpine avalanche, with the same chance of success as hope to banish unpleasant ideas, in order to make room for felicitous CONNIE OOKS (E(0)