“That’s th’ next,” he said, gloomily; “th’ first heavy rain--a touch o’ frost--th’ sea eats it down there, and a touch o’ frost and rain.... Yonder’s Kempery.” ... He pointed to the motionless brig. “Let’s get to the hall,” I said; and we did not speak further till we reached the mansion that had so gruesome a prospect to the north of it. It was of grey pebbles, set in a sort of mud-mortar, and was very ancient and handsome. The south lawn was overlooked by an octagonal bay-window, from the flat leads of which (so the keeper said) dead and gone lords of the manor and their chaplains had addressed the assembled tenantry; and this bay formed one end of a long western wing that I judged to be the chapel turned library. To the north lay the courtyard and outbuildings; and to the east, not twenty yards away, was the placid sea and the brig motionless over Kempery. II. Knowing what I now know, I think I might almost have guessed, from my first glance at him as the bandy-legged servant closed the rosewood door of the library behind me, what manner of man he was; nevertheless, this knowledge was not long delayed. The bed he seldom left was wheeled into the octagonal window-bay; he was propped up in wraps and blankets, with a book set against his sharp knees; and as he turned, his profile, for flat brow and beak, was for all the world like some grotesque bird carved on a pillar or spout. His large dull eyes, too, protruded remarkably; and the tying of the clout wherewith his head was bound as if for study resembled ears laid back. “Ye are a day late, sir,” he said at once in a sick, querulous voice; and when I answered that I had been stayed on the road, “Ay,” he complained, “it was a dark night last night; enough.--And now that ye have seen the place in the daylight, ye’ll be of the same mind as the rest of them, eh?” For all his sickness, this nettled me a little, and I replied that if the opinion of others was that the coast in the immediate vicinity was not a pleasing sight, I was disposed to agree with them; “but,” I added, “for that matter, I have some acquaintance with the sciences, and am free from superstition.” “Eh?” he said sharply. “And what may that amount to?” Certainly he had in some measure the right to catechise me, albeit not to be both petulant and domineering, as he was; and as I answered his questions as to the extent of my reading, I noticed with what ease I could have taken up his shrivelled figure. By and by he changed abruptly to matters of business; and as in this I wish to imitate his own brevity, I will only say that to a factor’s ordinary duties was to be added all the care of a considerable _déménagement_. He ceased; and I had bowed and was for leaving him when he beckoned me to come nearer. I stooped over the couch. “Tell me,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, “tell me, has it been your chance in the course of your reading to come across--this?”