In the doorway I halted.  The room was long, lined for the most part with books bound in what they call “divinity calf,” and littered with papers like a barrister’s table on assize day.  A leathern elbow-chair faced the fireplace, where a few coals burned sulkily, and beside it, on the corner of a writing table, were set an unlit candle and a pile of manuscripts.  At the opposite end of the room a curtained door led (as I guessed) to the chamber that I had first seen illuminated.  All this I took in with the tail of my eye, while staring straight in front, where, in the middle of a great square of carpet, between me and the windows, stood a table with a red cloth upon it.  On this cloth were a couple of wax candles lit, in silver stands, a tray, and a decanter three-parts full of brandy.  And between me and the table stood a man.

He stood sideways, leaning a little back, as if to keep his shadow off the threshold, and looked at me over his left shoulder—­a bald, grave man, slightly under the common height, with a long clerical coat of preposterous fit hanging loosely from his shoulders, a white cravat, black breeches, and black stockings.  His feet were loosely thrust into carpet slippers.  I judged his age at fifty, or thereabouts; but his face rested in the shadow, and I could only note a pair of eyes, very small and alert, twinkling above a large expanse of cheek.

He was lifting a wine-glass from the table at the moment when I appeared, and it trembled now in his right hand.  I heard a spilt drop or two fall on the carpet.  This was all the evidence he showed of discomposure.

Setting the glass back, he felt in his breast-pocket for a handkerchief, failed to find one, and rubbed his hands together to get the liquor off his fingers.

“You startled me,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, turning his eyes upon me, as he lifted his glass again, and emptied it.  “How did you find your way in?”

“By the front door,” said I, wondering at his unconcern.

He nodded his head slowly.

“Ah! yes; I forgot to lock it.  You came to steal, I suppose?”

“I came because I’d lost my way.  I’ve been travelling this God-forsaken moor since dusk—­”

“With your boots in your hand,” he put in quietly.

“I took them off out of respect to the yellow dog you keep.”

“He lies in a very natural attitude—­eh?”

“You don’t tell me he was stuffed?”

The old man’s eyes beamed a contemptuous pity.

“You are indifferent sharp, my dear sir, for a housebreaker.  Come in.  Set down those convicting boots, and don’t drip pools of water in the doorway.  If I must entertain a burglar, I prefer him tidy.”

He walked to the fire, picked up a poker, and knocked the coals into a blaze.  This done, he turned round on me with the poker still in his hand.  The serenest gravity sat on his large, pale features.