The high stone wall, which encircled the Castle and gardens for a circuit of three-quarters of a mile, effectually shut them off from the outside world. The postern-gates with which it was pierced were of solid iron, and the locks which secured them were said to have been fashioned by a Hindoo whom Mr. Ravenor had once brought home with him from India, and to be perfectly unique in their design and workmanship. The two main carriage entrances, about half a mile apart, were remarkable for nothing but the fine proportions of the towering iron gates; but they were always kept jealously locked and barred, and the fate of the uninvited guest who presented himself there was inevitable. There was no admittance. The afternoon was drawing towards a close when I turned the last corner of the winding avenue and approached the entrance. It had been a wild, blustering day; but just before I started from home the wind had dropped and a watery sun, feebly piercing the masses of heavy clouds with which the sky was strewn, was shining down, with a wan, unnatural glow, upon the clumps of fir-trees on either side of the way and the massive, frowning towers of the Castle close above me. Under foot and around me everything was wet. With the faintest stir of the dying breeze showers of raindrops fell from shrubs and trees, and at every step my feet sank into the soft, soaked gravel, or sent the moisture bubbling up from the layers of rotten leaves and twigs which the morning's gale had scattered along the road. It was an afternoon to damp anyone's spirits; and it was perhaps to the influence of the weather that I owed the sudden sinking of heart and courage which came over me as I slackened my pace before the grim-looking lodges and barred gate. I had started from home, notwithstanding my mother's white face and nervous, trembling manner, in a state of pleasurable excitement. I was about to penetrate into a mystery which had been the curiosity of my boyhood; I was to become one of those favoured few who had been permitted to pass within the portals of Ravenor Castle; and, more than that, I was about to visit there as the guest of a man whose marvellous reputation, personality, and career had kindled within me an almost passionate reverence--a man who had long been the object of my devoted, although boyish and unreasonable, hero-worship. Yet, though it would seem that I had everything to gain and nothing to fear or lose from the coming interview, no sooner had I arrived within sight of my destination than my spirits sank to zero.