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too much. Fellow martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!«
    »
Thou art the Man!
« cried Jabes, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. »Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage – seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul – Lo, this is human weakness; this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written! such honour have all His saints!«
    With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's staves, rushed round me in a body, and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter-rappings. Every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit which responded so smartly, that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me.
    And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult, what had played Jabes' part in the row? Merely, the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice, as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes!
    I listened doubtingly an instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dosed, and dreamt again; if possible, still more disagreeably than before.
    This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard also, the fir-bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause; but, it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple, a circumstance observed by me, when awake, but forgotten.
    »I must stop it, nevertheless!« I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch: instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!
    The intense horror of nightmare came over me; I tried to draw back my arm, but, the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice, sobbed,
    »Let me in – let me in!«
    »Who are you?« I asked struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.
    »Catherine Linton,« it replied, shiveringly, (why did I think of
Linton?
I had read
Earnshaw,
twenty times for Linton) »I'm come home, I'd lost my way on the moor!«
    As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window – Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bed-clothes: still it wailed, »Let me in!« and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear.
    »How can I?« I said at length. »Let
me
go, if you want me to let you in!«
    The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.
    I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour, yet, the instant I listened, again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!
    »Begone!« I shouted, »I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years!«
    »It's twenty years,« mourned the voice, »twenty years, I've been a waif for twenty years!«
    Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward.
    I tried to jump up; but, could not stir a limb; and so, yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.
    To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal. Hasty footsteps approached my chamber door: somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. I sat shuddering,