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to be overheard. I likewise heard the stranger's door gently opened. Soon afterwards a groan!— followed by a gurgling noise as of a death-struggle, mingled with the trickling of some liquid into a wooden vessel. Then all was still as death for a moment; and then again the cautious whispering was heard. I was unarmed, and if I made an alarm, there was no help within call, so that I should only be bringing the point of the fatal knife to my own throat; and, besides, the fell deed had been done! I lay still, therefore, suppressing my breath, and shuddering with horror. Again there was passing and repassing upon the stairway, and more whispering. I heard the words "Are you sure he is asleep? Don't you think he heard us?" and these questions were followed with a "Hush !" Then I heard a noise as of persons taking some heavy object down the staircase. I listened with breathless and horrid silence until I heard the doors closed after them, when I carefully rose from my bed, and stepped softly to the window. There, truly enough, was the dreadful reality! I saw Fowler and his wife, by the light of the waning. moon, carrying the dead body of the stranger, wrapped in his cloak, directly across the field, in the direction always taken by the spectre-Tinman and his horse and cart. At last they arrived at the foot of the rocky steep into whose granite walls. the shadows always appeared to glide. Stopping, breathless from the weight of their burden, both the he and the she villain looked cautiously around,

as if to note whether they had been observed. They then lustily applied themselves to the removal of some heavy fragments of rocks at the base of the precipice, the weight of which, judging from their size, would have required the strength of twenty men to remove, and I distinctly saw the

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narrow opening of a cave, the charnel-house, no doubt, of the Tinman, and perhaps of many others. Into this dark sepulchre the body of the murdered man was thrust, and the cowardly homicides stole back to the house, to tell their spoil, and perhaps retire to sleep, folding each other in their bloody embrace! "Wretches!" I inwardly exclaimed, "your hidden crimes have but a little longer to remain unwhipped of justice! Little do you think that the eye of man has looked upon your bloody tracks, that the darkest cavern cannot longer hide your guilt, and that you will soon be sent from an earthly to a yet higher tribunal of justice !”Again I heard steps upon the stairway. They approached nearer: now they are at my door.And-at this moment I was startled from a very deep though unquiet sleep, by the shrill and wellknown voice of Mrs. Fowler, squealing out—“ Mr. Doolittle-Mr. Doolittle-ain't you going to get up? Breakfast has been ready this half hour, and the man with the black horse is waiting for you. Poor man! he's been desput sick all night, or else he'd have clean got to 'Sopus, for't I know, afore now!" Thus ended the worst visit of the nightmare that I had ever experienced.

Perhaps I may as well add, in conclusion, that being at Washington on the installation of President Jefferson, some years afterwards, I saw among the members of Congress from somewhere beyond the westward, -not the Tinman's ghost, gentle reader,--but the real Tinman himself,—a leading senator in Congress from one of the new states, of which he was the first governor, and in which he was a landholder of some twenty-five thousand acres!

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"I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream-past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I hadbut man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard; the ear of man hath not seen; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called Bottom's dream, because it hath no bottom."-SHAKSPEARE.

I AM not one of those fortunate dogs who are born into this wicked world, having their ears already ringed with gold, silver spoons in their mouths, and diamonds sparkling upon their fingers; and who, of course, have nothing to do but vegetate and grow rich. But still, I can build as many castles in the air, and adorn them with as much splendour, as other people-since the building lots cost nothing; and I sometimes have golden visions, as well as the brokers. Nor do they vanish much sooner than I have seen some fortunes. Very lately I was the richest man north of Mexico, and remained so for some time. I will tell the good public how it was.

Taking a lounge upon the old sofa one afternoon,

VOL. I.-X

not a great while since-but no matter exactly when-and feeling none of the brightest for having been detained abroad on the preceding evening to a late hour, by the magic influence of bright eyes and dulcet voices, I was soon overtaken by a dream, which I will attempt to relate, though I have not the language at command to enable me to describe it in such glowing colours as the remnants of the vision, which are yet indistinctly floating in beautiful fragments through my imagination, seem to possess. As well might the painter attempt to adorn the meadow of his landscape with the glittering dew-drops which deck the original, as with liquid pearl, or think to catch the brightness and glory of the melting sunbeams as they dance upon the watery clouds, tinging their fleecy edges with molten gold. I had but recently returned from a tour through the delightful regions of western New-York, and as my eyes began to swim, and my senses to float away, in utter forgetfulness of the cares of this world, I was suddenly transported by bright-eyed fancy to the charming shores of the beautiful Owasco Lake. Presently afterwards, the mind having entirely "shuffled off this mortal coil," and being no longer fettered by time and space, I found myself straying leisurely from the shore through a deep forest of tall and stately trees, the primitive growth of the rich slopes and hill-sides of the west. It was on a lovely autumnal afternoon; a light haze hung lazily in the air, and thickened in the distant horizon, soft

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