So far committed, Geordie's courage came with a drawing up of his muscles; and muttering between his teeth, which risped like files, "I will face any one except the devil," he lifted the candle, the glimmer of which paled in the thick air of the opening. He waved it up and down before he entered; but it seemed as if the weak rays could not find their way in the dense atmosphere--enough, notwithstanding, to show him dimly a long lobby. He snorted as the accumulated must stimulated his nostrils; but there was more than must--the smell was that of an opened grave which had been covered with moil for a century. Yet his step was instinctively forward,--the small light flitting here and there like the fitful gleam of a magic lantern. Half groping with the left hand, as he held the candle with his right, he soon began to discover particulars. There were three doors, opening no doubt to rooms, on his left; and as the light--becoming accustomed, like men's eyes, to the dark--shone forwards towards the end, he saw another door, which was open. Desperate men--and Geordie was now wound up--aim at the farthest extremities. He made his way forward, laying down each stocking-clad foot as if in fear of being heard by the family below, whose hysterics at a tread above them at midnight, and in that house, would lead to inquiry and detection.

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