The change from the bright little Rectory, with all its hospitable preparations, to the gloomy grandeur of the masterless mansion, was very striking, when we three crossed the road next morning, to take the seals off, which Mr. Long had placed upon the principal rooms, and so, as it were, to break the blockade caused by the baronet's disappearance. The contrast began even with things without. Half one of the globes had been sliced from its pedestal on one side of the great iron gates; and in the very centre of the avenue, the grass grew long and rank. The sun-dial was cracked and gaped in zigzag, an emblem of the uncertainty that overhung the place. The heraldic beasts at the foot of the entrance-steps were much more mutilated than when I had seen them last, and had indeed only one stone fore-paw or claw between them. Disuse is sister to Abuse, but still how comes it that mere absence should beget, as it always does, such absolute Ruin? Had the Squire been at home the last three years, the globe upon the pedestal would have been whole, the dial flawless, the griffins with at least their larger limbs intact; and yet no man was ever seen to work this mischief. When the great door swung reluctantly back to admit the new possessor, he took my hand, and bade me Welcome, but his tone was far from gay. Every glance he cast around him evoked, I could see, some unpleasant association, and even, perhaps, a vague terror. There is something uncanny in exploring any dwelling the rooms of which have been locked up and unvisited for years--places that have been once consecrated to humanity, but have afterwards been given up to Solitude and slow decay. Memories of their ancient inmates seem to hang gloomily about them, like the cobweb in their corners; they are eloquent of desertion and of death. The shriek of the mouse, and the singing of the blue fly in the pane, have perhaps alone been heard there in the interim; but there seem to have been other and ghostlier noises, which cease at our approach. Who knows what eerie deeds our sudden intrusion may have interrupted! "What faces glimmered through the doors, What footsteps trod the upper floors," ere we broke in! The peculiar circumstances under which our search was made intensified these feelings in us three, and even Gilmore, who accompanied us, was affected by them. "O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear; A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, This place is _worse_ than haunted."