we were compelled to
skirt), and then a front door of ponderous oak, deep-set between walls
fully six feet thick, and studded all over with wooden pegs. The facade,
indeed, was wholly grim, with a castellated tower at one end, and a
number of narrow, sunken windows looking askance on the wreck and
ruin of a once prim, old-fashioned, high-walled garden. I thought that
Rattray might have shown more respect for the house of his ancestors.
It put me in mind of a neglected grave. And yet I could forgive a bright
young fellow for never coming near so desolate a domain.

We dined delightfully in a large and lofty hall, formerly used (said
Rattray) as a court-room. The old judgment seat stood back against the
wall, and our table was the one at which the justices had been wont to
sit. Then the chamber had been low-ceiled; now it ran to the roof, and
we ate our dinner beneath a square of fading autumn sky, with I wondered
how many ghosts looking down on us from the oaken gallery! I was
interested, impressed, awed not a little, and yet all in a way which
afforded my mind the most welcome distraction from itself and from the
past. To Rattray, on the other hand, it was rather sadly plain that the
place was both a burden and a bore; in fact he vowed it was the dampest
and the dullest old ruin under the sun, and that he would sell it
to-morrow if he could find a lunatic to buy. His want of sentiment
struck me as his one deplorable trait. Yet even this displayed his
characteristic merit of frankness. Nor was it at all unpleasant to hear
his merry, boyish laughter ringing round hall and gallery, ere it died
away against a dozen closed doors.

And there were other elements of good cheer: a log fire blazing heartily
in the old dog-grate, casting a glow over the stone flags, a reassuring
flicker into the darkest corner: cold viands of the very best: and the
finest old Madeira that has ever passed my lips.

Now, all my life I have been a "moderate drinker" in the most literal
sense of that slightly elastic term. But at the sad time of which I
am trying to write, I was almost an abstainer, from the fear, the
temptation--of seeking oblivion in strong waters. To give way then was
to go on giving way. I realized the danger, and I took stern measures.
Not stern enough, however; for what I did not realize was my weak and
nervous state, in which a glass would have the same effect on me as
three or four upon a healthy man.

Heaven knows how muc