doubts, and by this time the good wife had put every thing to rights for the night. Sleep soon began to wait upon me, and, bidding them good-night, I clambered up the ladder with a small tin saucer, half-filled with lard, in which a bit of wick, lighted at one end, floated quite cozily.
On reaching the upper room, I could discern, by this dull light, that it was the same size as the one below, and had a bed in each corner. To have a whole bed to myself was a most unexpected luxury. My worthy friend, the Yankee, had, by accident, taken possession of the bed in the corner immediately over the one in the lower room, which was occupied by the landlord and his wife, and was sound asleep, giving evidence that my orisons for his good night's rest were being realized. I must here explain, that, owing to a scarcity of flooring plank, the floor upon which we were sleeping was not entirely laid. The legs of the four bed-posts next to the walls were left to rest upon one single plank, leaving all the space under the beds open and communicating with the room below. The inner legs of the bed-posts rested upon other planks, and that portion of the floor which was in sight between the beds was all properly laid, except that they were not nailed down, and made an ominous creaking as I walked over them to choose my lodging-place, which I instinctively took as far from the Yankee as possible. Now, this vacuum under our beds was not known to either of us when we went to bed, and we laid down in our respective places, unconscious of any lurking danger beneath us. Fatigue is a great promoter of sound sleep; and I should, doubtless, have remained quietly in the arms of Morpheus until morning, had I not been aroused by the sound of a human voice, apparently in great agony. Having gone to bed, fully impressed with the idea of a catastrophe in that quarter, I asked, half-asleep and half-awake:
"Who is making that noise? Is it the Yankee, or the pig?"
To which I received no other answer than another groan. Rising up upon my elbow, I listened and soon discovered that the noise proceeded from the bed of the Yankee, and immediately sung out:
"My dear fellow, what's the matter?"
But my question seemed to have no other effect than to increase
