Visions of the Times of Old (Volume 3); Or the Antiquarian Enthusiast (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. The "three Tokens." Ant S. Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this ? What error drives our eyes and ears amiss 1 Until I know this sure uncertainty, I 'II entertain the offer'dfallacy. Comedy of Errors, Act ii. Bo. 2. " And were these tokens of confirmation indeed afforded?" eagerly interrupted the Antiquary, his keen eye impressively fixing itself on the answering glance of the stranger; when the latter, replying to his gaze with a look of steady and solemn assurance, and in a voice agitated by the emotion that connects itself with the delivery of some strange and momentous intelligence, added the following declaration to his most extraordinary narrative: ? " Most sacredly do I pledge myself that they were!" And, as he spoke, he crossed himself with an expression of devout appeal, as attaching a more than human responsibility to the assertion. " I am also prepared to lay before you the notarially-witnessed attestations of those parties, whose evidence I deemed a necessary adjunct to my own." And, at the same moment, theProfessor withdrew from an inner pocket of his undergarment a folded paper, and an article which, being divested of its carefully-adjusted covering, proved to be a small tablet of ash-wood; observing that the former was the certificate to which he had alluded, bearing the signatures of Archimbald Baron van Eikin- skialldi, of the Chevalier Gotz Hubert Maximilian von Motanheim, his brother-in-law, and of the Pastor, Hans Motsogner, his chaplain; and that the latter was the mysterious record found at the extremity of the northern avenue of the Linden Grove, at Okolni Castle. " My narrative," he added, " draws near to its conclusion. Before I descended to the breakfast table, I committed the particulars of my dream to writing; and, hav...