Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/54

 of how the ghosts and hobgoblins that were perhaps concealed in some unexplored crannies might come forth in all their blood-curdling hideousness. These idle fancies and banterings of the hour were vividly recalled one night, when I unfortunately found myself the only one to entertain the phantom visitors.

Every other member of the household had gone for a day's jaunt into the country, and was detained from home over night by a terrific rain and thunder storm. The servants, supposing they would return, went to their homes, as is customary, which I did not discover until after they had left.

In the dead hours of the night I was aroused from deepest sleep by a terrific noise. Quaking with fear in the dim light, and gripping the pistol which was on a chair at the head of my bed, I proceeded, like Rosalind, with a "swashing and martial outside," to reconnoiter. A brief investigation revealed the fact that the fancied ghost or hobgoblin was nothing more alarming than a "harmless necessary cat," which had crept in surreptitiously through the bars, on feline mischief bent. By a misstep of her catship there was a general crash of crockery, and the sudden clatter, breaking with startling effect on the stillness of the night, made me imagine that the hobgoblins had really trooped forth from their hiding-places.

I had flattered myself that the diligent study I had given the grammar, previous to my going to Mexico, would prove an " Open, Sesame!" to the language, but I soon found myself sadly mistaken when I heard it spoken idiomatically and with the rapid utterance of the natives. But by eagerly seizing every opportunity, however humble, of airing my incipient knowledge, and by aid of grammar and dictionary, my inseparable companions, I found myself in a few weeks equal to the exigencies of the case, and rattled off my newly acquired accomplishment with a reckless disregard of consequences.

Speculation and curiosity were ever on the alert to make discoveries in this old house, and at every turn a thousand echoes seemed answering my timorous step.

Generations had here lived their lives of sorrow and joy, and the