Dust was the only thing in the place that had any motion about it. When
their conductor admitted the light freely, and lifting up the heavy
window-sash, let in the summer air, he showed the mouldering furniture,
discoloured wainscoting and ceiling, rusty stove, and ashy hearth, in
all their inert neglect. Close to the door there stood a candlestick,
with an extinguisher upon it; as if the last man who had been there
had paused, after securing a retreat, to take a parting look at
the dreariness he left behind, and then had shut out light and life
together, and closed the place up like a tomb.
There were two rooms on that floor; and in the first or outer one a
narrow staircase, leading to two more above. These last were fitted
up as bed-chambers. Neither in them, nor in the rooms below, was any
scarcity of convenient furniture observable, although the fittings
were of a bygone fashion; but solitude and want of use seemed to have
rendered it unfit for any purposes of comfort, and to have given it a
grisly, haunted air.
Movables of every kind lay strewn about, without the least attempt at
order, and were intermixed with boxes, hampers, and all sorts of lumber.
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