We now approached the “massy gateway” by a wide entrance, which a pair of great doors had once closed--one of these had fallen from its hinges, and the other swung in the wind, banging against its post with a hollow sound, whose echoes told of vacancy. Above the gateway, the vane on the cupola turned to and fro in the gusty air, with a dreary queek-quake, queek-quake: all besides was still. We stood and looked at each other with an expression that said,--Did you ever see any thing like this? At this moment an old grey dog came softly out of the court--the first living thing we had seen except the jackdaws and the pigeons; quietly he came, as if he too felt the nature of his abode. It was with no vivacity of action, or noisy bark: he stood and silently wagged his tail; and as we drew near him, as silently retreated into the court. We entered this silent place, and looked around. The house formed its western end; stables and coach-houses formed its north and eastern sides; the south was open to the shrubbery. The ivy hung in huge masses from all the walls. In the eastern end was the “massy gateway” mentioned by Byron, arched over, and surmounted by a clock and cupola. So profoundly lifeless and deserted seemed the place, that though the clock-finger pointed to the true time of the day--exactly half-past twelve o’clock--our imaginations refused for some time to believe that the clock could actually be going: we felt positive astonishment when it proved to us that it really did. We now resolved to ascertain at the house itself, if it had any living inhabitants; and on approaching the hall-door, we heard a sound in a stable; we went in, and descried, in a dismal room adjoining it, a man sitting by a fire in a corner, and a dog lying on the hearth. The man and the place were alike forlorn. They were dirty, squalid, desolate. We had said, who could have supposed so abandoned a spot so near Nottingham? but who could have imagined so wild and banditti-like a being as that man, within so short a distance of a large town? His dress and person had every character of reckless neglect; his black hair hung about his pale face; he had no handkerchief about his neck; he sate and devoured his dinner, which he appeared to have cooked with his own hands, looking up at us with ruffian stupidity, as he answered our questions with a surly bluntness, without ceasing to help himself, with a large pocket-knife, and no fork, to his meal. He told us we could not see the house--master never let it be seen. When asked, why? he could not tell--but it was so; but we might ask the old woman in the house. Away we went, and a jewel of an old woman we found.