into Westmoreland--the scaur-gate whence the house was named; and
through this gate of mountain often, when the day was waning, a bar of
slanting sunset entered, like a plume of golden dust, and hovered on a
broad black patch of weather-beaten fir-trees. The day was waning now,
and every steep ascent looked steeper, while down the valley light and
shade made longer cast of shuttle, and the margin of the west began to
glow with a deep wine-color, as the sun came down--the tinge of many
mountains and the distant sea--until the sun himself settled quietly
into it, and there grew richer and more ripe (as old bottled wine is fed
by the crust), and bowed his rubicund farewell, through the postern of
the scaur-gate, to the old Hall, and the valley, and the face of Mr.
Jellicorse.

That gentleman's countenance did not, however, reply with its usual
brightness to the mellow salute of evening. Wearied and shaken by the
long, rough ride, and depressed by the heavy solitude, he hated and
almost feared the task which every step brought nearer. As the house
rose higher and higher against the red sky, and grew darker, and as the
sullen roar of blood-hounds (terrors of the neighborhood) roused the
slow echoes of the crags, the lawyer was almost fain to turn his horse's
head, and face the risks of wandering over the moor by night. But the
hoisting of a flag, the well-known token (confirmed by large letters
on a rock) that strangers might safely approach, inasmuch as the savage
dogs were kennelled--this, and the thought of such an entry for his
day-book, kept Mr. Jellicorse from ignominious flight. He was in for it
now, and must carry it through.

In a deep embayed window of leaded glass Mistress Yordas and her widowed
sister sat for an hour, without many words, watching the zigzag of shale
and rock which formed their chief communication with the peopled world.