a yarn." Which seemed natural enough; still I failed to perceive
why they need yarn in whispers.

Kirby Hall proved startlingly near at hand. We descended the bare
valley to the right, we crossed the beck upon a plank, were in the
oak-plantation about a minute, and there was the hall upon the
farther side.

And a queer old place it seemed, half farm, half feudal castle: fowls
strutting at large about the back premises (which we were compelled
to skirt), and then a front door of ponderous oak, deep-set between
walls fully six feet thick, and studded all over with wooden pegs.
The facade, indeed, was wholly grim, with a castellated tower at one
end, and a number of narrow, sunken windows looking askance on the
wreck and ruin of a once prim, old-fashioned, high-walled garden.
I thought that Rattray might have shown more respect for the house
of his ancestors. It put me in mind of a neglected grave. And yet
I could forgive a bright young fellow for never coming near so
desolate a domain.

We dined delightfully in a large and lofty hall, formerly used (said
Rattray) as a court-room. The old judgment seat stood back against
the wall, and our table was the one at which the justices had been
wont to sit. Then the chamber had been low-ceiled; now it ran to
the roof, and we ate our dinner beneath a square of fading autumn
sky, with I wondered how many ghosts looking down on us from the
oaken gallery! I was interested, impressed, awed not a little, and
yet all in a way which afforded my mind the most welcome distraction
from itself and from the past. To Rattray, on the other hand, it
was rather sadly plain that the place was both a burden and a bore;