We were now very curious to see the other members of his
family; they would, we imagined, prove amusing, if nothing
better. They proved a good deal better. The house we sought,
for a house it was, stood a little way back from the street
in a large garden. It had in former times been an inn, or
farm-house, possibly a manor-house, and was large, with
many small rooms, and short, narrow, crooked staircases,
half-landings and narrow passages, and a few large rooms,
their low ceilings resting on old oak beams, black as ebony.
Outside, it was the most picturesque and doubtless the oldest
house in the village; many-gabled, with very tall ancient
chimneys, the roofs of red tiles mottled grey and yellow with
age and lichen. It was a surprise to find a woodman--for that
was what the man was--living in such a big place. The woodman
himself, his appearance and character, gave us a second and
greater surprise. He was a well-shaped man of medium height;
although past middle life he looked young, and had no white
thread in his raven-black hair and beard. His teeth were
white and even, and his features as perfect as I have seen in
any man. His eyes were pure dark blue, contrasting rather
strangely with his pale olive skin and intense black hair.
Only a woodman, but he might have come of one of the oldest
and best families in the country, if there is any connection
between good blood and fine features and a noble expression.
Oddly enough, his surname was an uncommon and aristocratic
one. His wife, on the other hand, although a very good woman
as we found, had a distinctly plebeian countenance. One day
she informed us that she came of a different and better class
than her husband's. She was the daughter of a small