Knots of gossips lingered here and there near the place, indulging in vain surmises as to who the invisible gunners could be.
There was no more noise that night, but many a timid person lay awake expecting a renewal of the mysterious cannonading.

The Oldest Inhabitant refused to go to bed on any terms, but persisted in sitting up in a rocking-chair, with his hat and mittens on, until daybreak.
I thought I should never get to sleep.

The moment I drifted off in a doze I fell to laughing and woke myself up.

But towards morning slumber overtook me, and I had a series of disagreeable dreams, in one of which I was waited upon by the ghost of Silas Trefethen with an exorbitant bill for the use of his guns.

In another, I was dragged before a court-martial and sentenced by Sailor Ben, in a frizzled wig and three-cornered cocked hat, to be shot to death by Bailey's Battery--a sentence which Sailor Ben was about to execute with his own hand, when I suddenly opened my eyes and found the sunshine lying pleasantly across my face.