In this unenviable condition I found, myself on the birthday of my eighteenth year--I, the heir to an old title and to a splendid fortune--homeless, and well-nigh penniless, without having committed a crime or an error of which conscience could accuse me. The rolling clouds were gathering in grey masses on the darkening summits of the Cheviot hills in the hollows of which the snows of the past winter lay yet unmelted. The cold wind moaned in the leafless woods, and rustled the withered leaves that the autumn gales had strewn along the highway. The dull February evening crept on, and the road that wound over the uplands was deserted, for the last wayfarer had gone to his home. The sheep were in their pen and the cattle in their fold; no sound--not even the bark of a dog--came from the brown sides of the silent hills, and, affected by the gloomy aspect of Nature, my heart grew heavy, after its sterner and fiercer emotions passed away. The last flush of sunset was fading in the west; but I could see about three miles distant the gilt vanes and round turrets of Netherwood Hall shining above the strove of leafless trees that surrounded it, and I turned away with a sigh of bitterness, for adversity had not yet taught me philosophy. I was too young. With the express intention of visiting Netherwood Hall, I had travelled several miles on foot; but now, when in sight of the place, my spirit failed and my heart sickened within me; and thus, irresolute and weary, I seated myself by the side of the way, and strove to arrange my thoughts. To be brief, I shall describe in a few pages, who and what I am, and how on that sombre February evening I came to be on such unfortunate terms with old Dame Fortune. My grandfather, Sir Basil Gauntlet, of Netherwood, had so greatly resented his eldest son's marriage with a lady who had no fortune save her beauty, that he withdrew all countenance and protection from him. So far did he carry this unnatural enmity, that by will he bequeathed all his property to the son of a brother, and, with great barbarity, permitted my father to be consigned to the King's Bench prison, by which his commission in the cavalry was forfeited; and there, though a brave and high-spirited officer, who had served under the Marquis of Granby, he died of despair! My mother soon followed him to the land that lies beyond the grave; and thus in infancy I was left, as the phrase is, to the _tender_ mercies of the world in general, and my old bruin of a grandfather in particular.