In point of actual time this journey was not more than half-an-hour, yet it formed such a highly wrought experience, that to the boy it seemed to transcend and even to efface all that had previously happened in the placid term of his existence. At last it came to an end in a succession of quiet streets that led to a gloomy square, which, although very forbidding of aspect, was almost peaceful. The houses in it, tall and stately and austere, had a row of steep stone steps furnished with iron railings. It was one of these rows he ascended; and his father knocked with a boldness that seemed superhuman at a very stern-looking front door. After a brief period of waiting in which it seemed to the boy that he must be choked by the violent beatings of his heart, the door was opened by an old woman, equally stern of aspect, who asked their business in a gruff voice. The boy’s father said something to her which the boy was too excited to comprehend, whereupon she conducted them into a dark passage filled with bad air, and left them there while she went to inquire if they would be received by him they sought. Presently she returned to lead them to his presence. In a room at the end of the long passage, which seemed to grow darker and darker at every step they took, they found a very aged man. In appearance he was not unlike a faun. His eyes were sunken far in his cheeks, and they seemed to be faded like those of the blind. His features were so lean that they looked almost spectral; his tall frame and long limbs were warped with feebleness; and the boy noticed that his hands had red mittens to keep them warm. His head, which was of great nobility, was bald at the top, yet the lower part was covered by hair that was even whiter than that of the boy’s father, and so long that it came down upon his shoulders. This venerable figure sat at a table before a fire in a dark and sombre room, which faced the north and smelt of ink. Maps were on the walls; here and there were scattered books; there was a globe on a tripod; while blackboards, charts and desks abounded in all the panoply of education. The old school-master was ruling lines in a ciphering-book with the gravest nicety; while at his back the fire was shedding its glow on a coat which use had rendered green, ragged and threadbare. When the boy and his father came into his presence, the aged man, although stricken with painful infirmity, rose to his feet and welcomed them with a beautiful courtesy. “I cannot expect you to remember me, sir,” said the boy’s father, with a simplicity that was a little timorous. The aged school-master approached quite close to the boy’s father; in his faded eyes was a peering intentness.