At last, he became weary of sitting and indulging this fantastic humor of indifference, and emerged from his chamber with the design of finding his way about the lower part of the house. The mansion had that delightful intricacy which can never be contrived; never be attained by design; but is the happy result of where many builders, many designs,--many ages, perhaps,--have concurred in a structure, each pursuing his own design. Thus it was a house that you could go astray in, as in a city, and come to unexpected places, but never, until after much accustomance, go where you wished; so Redclyffe, although the great staircase and wide corridor by which he had been led to his room seemed easy to find, yet soon discovered that he was involved in an unknown labyrinth, where strange little bits of staircases led up and down, and where passages promised much in letting him out, but performed nothing. To be sure, the old English mansion had not much of the stateliness of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s castles, with their suites of rooms opening one into another; but yet its very domesticity--its look as if long ago it had been lived in--made it only the more ghostly; and so Redclyffe felt the more as if he were wandering through a homely dream; sensible of the ludicrousness of his position, he once called aloud; but his voice echoed along the passages, sounding unwontedly to his ears, but arousing nobody. It did not seem to him as if he were going afar, but were bewildered round and round, within a very small compass; a predicament in which a man feels very foolish usually. As he stood at an old window, stone-mullioned, at the end of a passage into which he had come twice over, a door near him opened, and a personage looked out whom he had not before seen. It was a face of great keenness and intelligence, and not unpleasant to look at, though dark and sallow. The dress had something which Redclyffe recognized as clerical, though not exactly pertaining to the Church of England,--a sort of arrangement of the vest and shirt-collar; and he had knee breeches of black. He did not seem like an English clerical personage, however; for even in this little glimpse of him Redclyffe saw a mildness, gentleness, softness, and asking-of-leave, in his manner, which he had not observed in persons so well assured of their position as the Church of England clergy. He seemed at once to detect Redclyffe’s predicament, and came forward with a pleasant smile, speaking in good English, though with a somewhat foreign accent. “Ah, sir, you have lost your way. It is a labyrinthian house for its size, this old English Hall,--full of perplexity. Shall I show you to any point?” “Indeed, sir,” said Redclyffe, laughing, “I hardly know whither I want to go; being a stranger, and yet knowing nothing of the public places of the house. To the library, perhaps, if you will be good enough to direct me thither.”