In these two rooms were the latticed windows seen in the front of the
chateau, and over them still hung long sweeping curtains, so tattered
and moth-eaten that they were almost falling to pieces. Profound silence
reigned here, unbroken save by occasional scurrying and squeaking
of mice behind the wainscot, the gnawing of rats in the wall, or the
ticking of the death-watch.
From the tapestried chamber a door opened into a long suite of deserted
rooms, which were lofty and of noble proportions, but devoid of
furniture, and given up to dust, spiders, and rats. The apartments on
the floor above them were the home of great numbers of bats, owls, and
jackdaws, who found ready ingress through the large holes in the roof.
Every evening they flew forth in flocks, with much flapping of wings,
and weird, melancholy cries and shrieks, in search of the food not to be
found in the immediate vicinity of this forlorn mansion.
The apartments on the ground floor contained nothing but a few bundles
of straw, a heap of corn-cobs, and some antiquated gardening implements.
In one of them, however, was a rude bed, covered with a single, coarse
blanket; presumably that of the only domestic remaining in the whole
establishment.
It was from the kitchen chimney that the little spiral of smoke escaped
which was seen from without.
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