The “Manor,” as the Manwaring family house was called, had been substantially rebuilt in the early part of the last century, and had no particular pretensions in itself to beauty or picturesqueness; but its position was perfect, the views from it were delightful, and attached to it was an ill-kept, but charming old-fashioned garden, with stone terraces, flights of steps, a sun-dial, and some quaint mutilated statues-- “Bold Neptune, Plutarch, and Nicodemus, All standing naked in the open air.”[1] There was no park, properly so called, but the neighbouring fields, with their magnificent timber trees, had quite a park-like appearance. The village of Holmcastle, with its Rectory and small ancient Church, slept in the valley hard by, at an elevation but a little above the river, though at a considerable depth below the mansion, and this circumstance gave the latter a completely feudal appearance. Inside, the Manor did not differ much from other country houses of the better class of the same date, save that it contained more family portraits than usual, and that it had a fine entrance hall, and a remarkably curious and interesting Library! Upon entering the room, which opened out of a long corridor upstairs, not a book was visible, but the walls were panelled in dark Spanish chestnut wood, each panel being divided from the next by a handsome pilaster. The visitor would then be shown that, by applying a curiously shaped key which lay on a central table to a groove in each pilaster, the latter could be turned back, and then the neighbouring panel flew open, discovering shelves filled with ancient books, not one of which was of less ancient date than the year 1720, while many of them were of far greater antiquity. One of these compartments was reserved for books of poetry, another for divinity and theology, another for the classics, and so on, all the books being in admirable preservation, and well chosen by the Sir Miles Manwaring who, on the destruction of the older mansion by fire, had rebuilt the house in its present form. Underneath the book-shelves were drawers filled with ancient charters, title-deeds, and other archives of the past. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Father Prout.] CHAPTER IV. THE SQUIRE OF HOLMCASTLE.