e one
must have brought the tidings of his arrival; the family circle were at
that moment waiting to receive him; he could see his old letters lying
on the table before them, and recognised the identical red splash he had
dropped, as if accidentally, on the corner of one--the dispatch he had
written after his first action--although he had taken the trouble to go
to the cock-pit to procure, for the occasion, this valorous token of
danger and glory. But John--it was so late for him to be from
home!--and, as a new idea passed across his mind, he turned his eyes
upon the old house, which was distant about a hundred yards. It was
probable, he thought, nay, more than probable, that his father, when
circumstances enabled him to build a new house for himself, had given
the old one to his eldest son; and John, doubtless, was established
there as the master of the family, and perhaps at this moment was
waiting anxiously for a message to require his presence on the joyful
occasion of his brother's arrival. He did not calculate very curiously
time or ages, for his brother was only his senior by two years; he felt
that he was himself a man long ago, and thought that John by this time
must be almost an old man.

While these reflections were passing through his mind, he observed a
light in the window of the old house; but he could not well tell whether
it was merely the reflection of a moonbeam on the glass, or a candle in
the interior. He walked forward out of curiosity; but the scene, as he
approached the building, was so gloomy, and the air so chill, that he
wished to turn back; however, he walked on till he reached the door, and
there, sure enough, his brother was waiting on the threshold to receive
him. They shook hands in silence, for William's heart was too full to
speak, and he followed John into the house; and an ill-cared-for house
it was. He stumbled among heaps of rubbish in the dark passage; and, as
he groped along the wall, his hand brought down patches of old lime, and
was caught in spiders' webs almost as strong as if the spinner had meant
to go a-fowling. When they had got into the parlour, he saw that the
building was indeed a ruin; there was not a whole pane of glass in the
window, nor a plank of wood in the damp floor; and the fireplace,
without fire, or grate to hold it, looked like the entrance to a
burying-vault. John, however, walked quietly in, and sat down on a heap
of rubbish by the ingleside; and William, f