“It looks bleak and barren enough,” thought Francis, with a shudder; “but it’s hereabouts that my uncle Oliver picked up a good bit of his money. The tin mines lie out yonder; and the stone quarry in the hollow there brought him in plenty, if folks tell the truth.” Francis Tredethlyn might have echoed the boast of Helen Macgregor had he chosen, and with stronger justification than that lady, for the earth upon which he trod was not only his native land but his own peculiar property, by virtue of certain yellow-looking parchments under the sign-manual of an Earl and Baron of Landresdale who flourished in the reign of James I. and by payment of an eccentric annual tribute in the shape of a young doe and a hundredweight of virgin tin. It was all his own, this bleak waste land which Francis Tredethlyn, late private soldier in her Majesty’s service, late valet to a capricious master, now trod under his feet. Nor was it the less to be considered for its barrenness of aspect, for rich metals lay deep below the heathery surface, in mines that were amongst the oldest and most valuable in Cornwall. But Francis Tredethlyn was in no wise elated or disturbed by the importance of his possession. He had never felt any ardent desire for wealth, and as yet he had not begun to realize its manifold advantages. He saw the effect of his fortune upon other men, and smiled at their weakness; but what had been true of him in the first hour of his altered position was true of him now,--he had no power either to realize or rejoice in the extent of his riches. He walked slowly across the barren moorland, always upward, always mounting towards a long ridge of western hill, behind which two streaks of yellow light stretched low against the darkening sky,--a bleak, bare-looking hill, that seemed the very end of the world. It was upon this hillside that Tredethlyn Grange had been built four centuries ago, in the days when men built their houses with a view to endurance; and it stood there still, a long gray tenement of moss-grown stone, with narrow casement windows, looking darkly out upon the twilight moor. The larger portion of the old house had been uninhabited during the tenantship of the Tredethlyns, who, in a spirit of economy, had located themselves in the interior rooms lying at one end of the rambling mansion. It was in one of these rooms that a light now twinkled faintly; and it was towards this end of the house that Francis Tredethlyn directed his steps. There had been a moat once on two sides of the house, but cabbages now grew upon the sloping earth. There had been a garden once before the Grange, and an old stone sun-dial still marked the spot; but of all the trim flower-beds and angular paths there remained no vestige now. A field of trefoil, bounded by a low stone wall, lay beyond two broken pillars that had once supported a pair of handsome gates; and the sheep browsed close beneath the dim latticed windows.