It was a vain thought that I should read myself asleep among the terrible images suggested by my brochure. I was even more vigilant than before. Then, that Francis seemed never at rest; I heard him clambering up stairs, tramping along passages, shutting doors, speaking to himself, just as if all the actions of his prior life were being gone over again. I would have another visit, and another long narrative of some Bernard, whose picture was somewhere in a red or blue room, and who had been, as usual, with all those bearded individuals who hung on walls, either at the crusades under Peter the hermit, or at Flodden under James, or at Culloden under Charles. The clock struck, with a sound of grating rust, two; and--tramp, tramp--he trudged along the passage. The door opened, and in came my chronicler.
"Doctor, I saw your light," said he, "and you know it was always my duty, when the family were in their old home here, to see that all the lights were out o' nights; aye ever after the east wing was burned down, through aunt Marjory's love of reading old romances. I hope I did not disturb you."
"No," replied I; "pray, Francis, I need not ask which of these two pictured beauties is Amelia, my patient? The likeness is good."
"Yes, there she is," said he, with a return of his old enthusiasm. "See her light locks and her blue eyes. She was the mother of that fair child. Don't you see the daughter in the mother and the mother in the daughter? But I cannot look long on these pictures. My heart fails and my head runs round. Look at the dark one. It was a terrible night that when she came to Redcleugh. My wife, who now lies in Deathscroft, down among the elms yonder, could not sleep for the screeching of the owls, as if every horned devil of them shouted woe! woe!--to the house of Redcleugh."
"Nonsense, Francis, omens--all nonsense," I said, interrupting him.
"So said I to Christy, just as you say, doctor. So say we all, every one of us, here and everywhere, always, just until we are pulled up at a jerk by some one of God's acts, when we see His finger pointed to the sign. You are not so old as I am, and have something to learn. Signs are made only when there are to be judgments, and judgments are not according to the common ways of heaven."