walls attached to this were half filled up with soil.  I had never examined it closely, I am ashamed to say.  There was a large room, or what had been a large room, with the lower part of the windows still existing, on the principal floor, and underneath other windows, which were perfect, though half filled up with fallen soil, and waving with a wild growth of brambles and chance growths of all kinds.  This was the oldest part of all.  At a little distance were some very commonplace and disjointed fragments of building, one of them suggesting a certain pathos by its very commonness and the complete wreck which it showed.  This was the end of a low gable, a bit of gray wall, all incrusted with lichens, in which was a common door-way.  Probably it had been a servants’ entrance, a backdoor, or opening into what are called “the offices” in Scotland.  No offices remained to be entered,—­pantry and kitchen had all been swept out of being; but there stood the door-way open and vacant, free to all the winds, to the rabbits, and every wild creature.  It struck my eye, the first time I went to Brentwood, like a melancholy comment upon a life that was over.  A door that led to nothing,—­closed once, perhaps, with anxious care, bolted and guarded, now void of any meaning.  It impressed me, I remember, from the first; so perhaps it may be said that my mind was prepared to attach to it an importance which nothing justified.

The summer was a very happy period of repose for us all.  The warmth of Indian suns was still in our veins.  It seemed to us that we could never have enough of the greenness, the dewiness, the freshness of the northern landscape.  Even its mists were pleasant to us, taking all the fever out of us, and pouring in vigor and refreshment.  In autumn we followed the fashion of the time, and went away for change which we did not in the least require.  It was when the family had settled down for the winter, when the days were short and dark, and the rigorous reign of frost upon us, that the incidents occurred which alone could justify me in intruding upon the world my private affairs.  These incidents were, however, of so curious a character, that I hope my inevitable references to my own family and pressing personal interests will meet with a general pardon.

I was absent in London when these events began.  In London an old Indian plunges back into the interests with which all his previous life has been associated, and meets old friends at every step.  I had been circulating among some half-dozen of these,—­enjoying the return to my former life in shadow, though I had been so thankful in substance to throw it aside,—­and had missed some of my home letters, what with going down from Friday to Monday to old Benbow’s place in the country, and stopping on the way back to dine and sleep at Sellar’s and to take a look into Cross’s stables, which occupied another day.  It is never safe to miss one’s letters.  In this transitory life, as the Prayer-book says, how