I was lying prostrate, still awake--and (there being no shutters to the window at the foot of the bed) I was looking at some oddly-shaped, tall, acute-angled, slated roofs, glistening in the light of the round full moon, which was hanging immediately above them. The scene was delightfully silent and serene. Occasionally I faintly heard a distant footstep approaching, until treading heavily under the window, its sound gradually diminished, till all again was silent. Sometimes a cloud passing slowly across the moon would veil the roofs in darkness; and then, again, they would suddenly burst upon the eye, in silvery light, shining brighter than ever. As somewhat fatigued I lay half enjoying this scene, and half dozing, I suddenly heard, apparently close to me, the scream of a woman, which really quite electrified me!
On listening it was repeated, when, jumping out of bed and opening the door, I heard it again proceeding from a room at the distant end of the passage; and such was the violence of its tone, that my impression was--"the lady's room is on fire!"
There is something in the piercing shriek of a woman in distress which produces an irresistible effect on the featherless biped, called man; and, in rushing to her assistance, he performs no duty--he exercises no virtue--but merely obeys an instinctive impulse which has been benevolently imparted to him--not for his own good, but for the safety and protection of a weaker and a better sex.
But although this feeling exists so powerfully chez nous, yet it has not by nature been imparted to common-place garments, such as coats, black figured silk waistcoats, rusty knee-breeches, nor even to easy shoes, blue worsted stockings, or such like; and, therefore, while, by an irresistible attraction which I could not possibly counteract, obeying the mysterious impulse of my nature, I rushed along the passage, these base, unchivalric garments remained coldly dangling over the back of a chair: in short, I followed the laws of my nature--they, theirs.
With some difficulty, having succeeded in bursting open the door just as a fifth shriek was repeated, I rushed in, and there, sitting up in her bed--her soft arms most anxiously extended towards me--her countenance expressing an agony of fear--sat a young lady, by no means ill-favoured, and aged (as near as I could hastily calculate) about twenty-one!