The turnkey led the way in silence; and gently raising the latch of the room door, motioned Mr.Pickwick to enter. It was a large, bare, desolate room,with a number of stump bedsteads made of iron, on one of which lay stretched the shadow of a man—wan,pale, and ghastly. His breathing was hard and thick,and he moaned painfully as it came and went. At the bedside sat a short old man in a cobbler's apron, who,by the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, was reading from the Bible aloud. It was the fortunate legatee.