bright and even gladsome; but at sundown in September, with a high wind,
and a heavy surf rolling in close along the links, the place told of
nothing but dead mariners and sea disaster. A ship beating to windward on
the horizon, and a huge truncheon of wreck half buried in the sands at my
feet, completed the innuendo of the scene.

The pavilion--it had been built by the last proprietor, Northmour's uncle,
a silly and prodigal virtuoso--presented little signs of age. It was two
stories in height, Italian in design, surrounded by a patch of garden in
which nothing had prospered but a few coarse flowers; and looked, with its
shuttered windows, not like a house that had been deserted, but like one
that had never been tenanted by man. Northmour was plainly from home;
whether, as usual, sulking in the cabin of his yacht, or in one of his
fitful and extravagant appearances in the world of society, I had, of
course, no means of guessing. The place had an air of solitude that
daunted even a solitary like myself; the wind cried in the chimneys with a
strange and wailing note; and it was with a sense of escape, as if I were
going indoors, that I turned away and, driving my cart before me, entered
the skirts of the wood.

The Sea-Wood of Graden had been planted to shelter the cultivated fields
behind, and check the encroachments of the blowing sand. As you advanced
into it from coastward, elders were succeeded by other hardy shrubs; but
the timber was all stunted and bushy; it led a life of conflict; the trees
were accustomed to swing there all night long in fierce winter tempests;
and even in early spring, the leaves were already flying, and autumn was
beginning, in this exposed plantation. Inland the ground rose into a
little hill, which, along with the islet, served as a sailing mark for
seamen. When the hill was open of the islet to the north, vessels must
bear well to the eastward to clear Graden Ness and the Graden Bullers. In