The man Braithwaite met me at the station with a spring cart. The
very porters seemed to expect me, and my luggage was in the cart
before I had given up my ticket. Nor had we started when I first
noticed that Braithwaite did not speak when I spoke to him. On the
way, however, a more flagrant instance recalled young Rattray's
remark, that the man was "not like other people." I had imagined it
to refer to a mental, not a physical, defect; whereas it was clear
to me now that my prospective landlord was stone-deaf, and I
presently discovered him to be dumb as well. Thereafter I studied
him with some attention during our drive of four or five miles. I
called to mind the theory that an innate physical deficiency is
seldom without its moral counterpart, and I wondered how far this
would apply to the deaf-mute at my side, who was ill-grown, wizened,
and puny into the bargain. The brow-beaten face of him was certainly
forbidding, and he thrashed his horse up the hills in a dogged,
vindictive, thorough-going way which at length made me jump out and
climb one of them on foot. It was the only form of protest that
occurred to me.

The evening was damp and thick. It melted into night as we drove.
I could form no impression of the country, but this seemed desolate
enough. I believe we met no living soul on the high road which we
followed for the first three miles or more. At length we turned
into a narrow lane, with a stiff stone wall on either hand, and this
eventually led us past the lights of what appeared to be a large
farm; it was really a small hamlet; and now we were nearing our
destination. Gates had to be opened, and my poor driver breathed
hard from the continual getting down and up. In the end a long and
heavy cart-track brought us to the loneliest light that I have ever