“Wanted!” exclaimed Haward.  “Ingress into my own house is wanted!  Where is Juba?”

One of the negroes pressed forward.  “Heah I is, Marse Duke!  House all ready for you, but you done sont word”—­

“I know,—­I know,” answered Haward impatiently.  “I changed my mind.  Is that you, Saunderson, with the light?  Or is it Hide?”

The candle moved to one side, and there was disclosed a large white face atop of a shambling figure dressed in some coarse, dark stuff.  “Neither, sir,” said an expressionless voice.  “Will it please your Honor to dismount?”

Haward swung himself out of the saddle, tossed the reins to a negro, and, with Juba at his heels, climbed the five low stone steps and entered the wide hall running through the house and broken only by the broad, winding stairway.  Save for the glimmer of the solitary candle all was in darkness; the bare floor, the paneled walls, echoed to his tread.  On either hand squares of blackness proclaimed the open doors of large, empty rooms, and down the stair came a wind that bent the weak flame.  The negro took the light from the hand of the man who had opened the door, and, pressing past his master, lit three candles in a sconce upon the wall.

“Yo’ room’s all ready, Marse Duke,” he declared.  “Dere’s candles enough, an’ de fire am laid an’ yo’ bed aired.  Ef you wan’ some supper, I kin get you bread an’ meat, an’ de wine was put in yesterday.”

Haward nodded, and taking the candle began to mount the stairs.  Half way up he found that the man in the sad-colored raiment was following him.  He raised his brows, but being in a taciturn humor, and having, moreover, to shield the flame from the wind that drove down the stair, he said nothing, going on in silence to the landing, and to the great eastward-facing room that had been his father’s, and which now he meant to make his own.  There were candles on the table, the dresser, and the mantelshelf.  He lit them all, and the room changed from a place of shadows and monstrous shapes to a gentleman’s bedchamber,—­somewhat sparsely furnished, but of a comfortable and cheerful aspect.  A cloth lay upon the floor, the windows were curtained, and the bed had fresh hangings of green and white Kidderminster.  Over the mantel hung a painting of Haward and his mother, done when he was six years old.  Beneath the laughing child and the smiling lady, young and flower-crowned, were crossed two ancient swords.  In the middle of the room stood a heavy table, and pushed back, as though some one had lately risen from it, was an armchair of Russian leather.  Books lay upon the table; one of them open, with a horn snuffbox keeping down the leaf.