The Unbridled Madness

I had a terrible prescience of some dreadful experience which awaited
me as I drove forward. Obstructions of tree and shrub, and tangled
vines, encountered me, but did not long arrest, and I really felt
them not. I put them aside without a consciousness.

At length a glimmering light informed me I was near the cottage.
I could see the heavy dark masses of foliage that crowded before
the entrance. The light was in the parlor. There was also one in
the room of Mrs. Porterfield. Ours, which was on the same floor
with hers, was in darkness. I never experienced sensations more
like those of a drunken man than when, working my way cautiously
among the trees, I approached the window. The glasses were down,
possibly in consequence of the violence of the gust. But there was
one thing unusual. The curtains were also down at both windows.
These curtains were half-curtains only. They fell from the upper
edge of the lower sash, and were simply meant to protect the inmates
from the casual glance of persons in front. The house was on an
elevation of two or three feet from the ground. It was impossible
to see into the apartment unless I could raise myself at least that
much above my own stature. I looked around me for a stump, bench,
block--anything; but there was nothing, or in the darkness I failed
to find it. To clamber up against the side of the house would have
disturbed the inmates. I ascended a tree, and buried within its
leaves, looked directly into the apartment.