My uncle lay stretched upon his back.  The chamber was without a fire, or any of the comforts of a sick-room.  The cobwebs flaunted from the ceiling.  The tester was covered with dust, and the curtains were tattered.  From underneath the bed peeped out one end of his strong box.  Against the wainscot were suspended rusty blunderbusses, horse pistols, and a cut-and-thrust sword, with which he had fortified his room to defend his life and treasure.  He had employed no physician during his illness, and from the scanty relics lying on the table, seemed almost to have denied himself the assistance of a cook.

When I entered the room he was lying motionless; with his eyes fixed and his mouth open; at the first look I thought him a corpse.  The noise of my entrance made him turn his head.  At the sight of me a ghastly smile came over his face, and his glazing eye gleamed with satisfaction.  It was the only smile he had ever given me, and it went to my heart.  “Poor old man!” thought I, “why would you not let me love you?—­Why would you force me to leave you thus desolate, when I see that my presence has the power to cheer you?”

“Nephew,” said he, after several efforts, and in a low gasping voice —­“I am glad you are come.  I shall now die with satisfaction.  Look,” said he, raising his withered hand and pointing—­“look—­in that box on the table you will find that I have not forgotten you.”

I pressed his hand to my heart, and the tears stood in my eyes.  I sat down by his bed-side, and watched him, but he never spoke again.  My presence, however, gave him evident satisfaction—­for every now and then, as he looked at me, a vague smile would come over his visage, and he would feebly point to the sealed box on the table.  As the day wore away, his life seemed to wear away with it.  Towards sunset, his hand sunk on the bed and lay motionless; his eyes grew glazed; his mouth remained open, and thus he gradually died.

I could not but feel shocked at this absolute extinction of my kindred.  I dropped a tear of real sorrow over this strange old man, who had thus reserved his smile of kindness to his deathbed; like an evening sun after a gloomy day, just shining out to set in darkness.  Leaving the corpse in charge of the domestics, I retired for the night.

It was a rough night.  The winds seemed as if singing my uncle’s requiem about the mansion; and the bloodhounds howled without as if they knew of the death of their old master.  Iron John almost grudged me the tallow candle to burn in my apartment and light up its dreariness; so accustomed had he been to starveling economy.  I could not sleep.  The recollection of my uncle’s dying scene and the dreary sounds about the house, affected my mind.  These, however, were succeeded by plans for the future, and I lay awake the greater part of the night, indulging the poetical anticipation, how soon I would make these old walls ring with cheerful life, and restore the hospitality of my mother’s ancestors.