The officer stood for a minute or two, as if in brown thoughts and deep melancholy, and turned to the house once or twice, and seemed to hesitate as to approaching it. The long great house, with the broad river-front, looked all dark and desolate; not a servant, a horse, or even a dog was moving, and the only sign of life I could see was a dull light in a little window over a narrow doorway. While I was wondering at all this, and the captain standing gloomily, a little dark figure crossed the moonlight from the shadowy doorway, and the officer made a step or two, and held out his arms and received it. They seemed to stay pretty well satisfied thus, the figure being wholly female, until, with a sudden change of thought, there seemed to be some sobbing. This led the captain to try again some soft modes of persuasion, such as I could not see into, even if I would have deigned to do a thing against my grain so, because I have been in that way myself, and did not want to be looked at. However, not to be too long over what every man almost goes through (some honestly, and some anyhow, but all tending to experience), my only desire was, finding them at it, to get out of the way very quickly. For, poor as I am, there were several women of Newton, and Llaleston, and Ewenny, and even of Bridgend, our market-town, setting their caps, like springles, at me! Whereas I laboured at nothing else but to pay respect to my poor wife's memory, and never have a poor woman after her. And now all these romantic doings made me feel uneasy, and ready to be infected, so as to settle with nothing more than had been offered me thrice, and three times refused--a 7-foot-and-6-inch mangle; and (if she proved a tiger) have to work it myself perhaps!