been a fish pond. Here the grey, weather-worn front of a building
edged from behind the trees. It was Oxwell Hall, once the seat of a
family now extinct, and of late years used as a farmhouse.

Benjamin Derriman, who owned the crumbling place, had originally
been only the occupier and tenant-farmer of the fields around. His
wife had brought him a small fortune, and during the growth of their
only son there had been a partition of the Oxwell estate, giving the
farmer, now a widower, the opportunity of acquiring the building and
a small portion of the land attached on exceptionally low terms.
But two years after the purchase the boy died, and Derriman's
existence was paralyzed forthwith. It was said that since that
event he had devised the house and fields to a distant female
relative, to keep them out of the hands of his detested nephew; but
this was not certainly known.

The hall was as interesting as mansions in a state of declension
usually are, as the excellent county history showed. That popular
work in folio contained an old plate dedicated to the last scion of
the original owners, from which drawing it appeared that in 1750,
the date of publication, the windows were covered with little
scratches like black flashes of lightning; that a horn of hard smoke
came out of each of the twelve chimneys; that a lady and a lap-dog
stood on the lawn in a strenuously walking position; and a
substantial cloud and nine flying birds of no known species hung
over the trees to the north-east.

The rambling and neglected dwelling had all the romantic
excellencies and practical drawbacks which such mildewed places
share in common with caves, mountains, wildernesses, glens, and