The day after Mr Glowry’s departure was one of incessant¹ rain, and Scythrop repented² of the promise he had given. The next day was one of bright sunshine: he sat on the terrace, read a tragedy of Sophocles, and was not sorry, when Raven³ announced dinner, to find himself alive. On the third evening, the wind blew, and the rain beat, and the owl⁴ flapped against his windows; and he put a new flint in his pistol. On the fourth day, the sun shone again; and he locked the pistol up in a drawer, where he left it undisturbed, till the morning of the eventful Thursday, when he ascended⁵ the turret⁶ with a telescope, and spied anxiously along the road that crossed the fens⁷ from Claydyke: but nothing appeared on it. He watched in this manner from ten A.M. till Raven summoned him to dinner at five; when he stationed Crow at the telescope, and descended⁸ to his own funeral-feast. He left open the communications between the tower and turret, and called aloud at intervals⁹ to Crow — ‘Crow, Crow, is any thing coming?’ Crow answered, ‘The wind blows, and the windmills turn, but I see nothing coming;’ and, at every answer, Scythrop found the necessity of raising his spirits with a bumper¹⁰. After dinner, he gave Raven his watch to set by the abbey clock. Raven brought it, Scythrop placed it on the table, and Raven departed. Scythrop called again to Crow; and Crow, who had fallen asleep, answered mechanically, ‘I see nothing coming.’ Scythrop laid his pistol between his watch and his bottle. The hour-hand passed the VII. — the minute-hand moved on; — it was within three minutes of the appointed time. Scythrop called again to Crow: Crow answered as before. Scythrop rang the bell: Raven appeared.

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