Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

THE LAST SCENE. 357
vant with a lantern. Just as he arrived opposite the desolate
abode of the little man in black, he was arrested by the piteous
howling of a dog, which, heard in the pauses of a storm, was
exquisitely mournful; and he fancied, now and then, that he
caught the low and broken groans of some one in distress. He
stopped for some minutes, hesitating between the benevolence
of his heart and a sensation of genuine delicacy, which, in spite
of his eccentricity, he fully possessed-and which forbade him to
pry into the concerns of his neighbors. Perhaps, too, this hesitation might have been strengthened by a little taint of superstition; for surely, if the unknown had been addicted to witchcraft, this was a most propitious night for his vagaries. At
length the old gentleman's philanthropy predominated; he ap
proached the hovel, and pushing open the door-for poverty has
no occasion for locks and keys-beheld, by the light of the lantern, a scene that smote his generous heart to the core.
On a miserable bed, with pallid and emaciated visage and hollow eyes-in a room destitute of every convenience-without
fire to warm or friend to console him, lay this helpless mortal,
who had been so long the terror and wonder of the village.
His dog was crouching on the scanty coverlet, and shivering with
cold. My grandfather stepped softly and hesitatingly to the
bed-side, and accosted the forlorn sufferer in his usual accents of
kindness. The little man in black seemed recalled by the tones
of compassion from the lethargy into which he had fallen; for,
though his heart was almost frozen, there was yet one chord
that answered to the call of the good old man who bent over
him; the tones of sympathy, so novel to his ear, called back his
wandering senses, and acted like a restorative to his solitary
feelings.
He raised his eyes, but they were vacant and haggard; he