day.

The country, I have said, was mixed sand hill and links; _links_ being a
Scottish name for sand which has ceased drifting and become more or less
solidly covered with turf. The pavilion stood on an even space: a little
behind it, the wood began in a hedge of elders huddled together by the
wind; in front, a few tumbled sand hills stood between it and the sea. An
outcropping of rock had formed a bastion for the sand, so that there was
here a promontory in the coast line between two shallow bays; and just
beyond the tides, the rock again cropped out and formed an islet of small
dimensions but strikingly designed. The quicksands were of great extent at
low water, and had an infamous reputation in the country. Close in shore,
between the islet and the promontory, it was said they would swallow a man
in four minutes and a half; but there may have been little ground for this
precision. The district was alive with rabbits, and haunted by gulls which
made a continual piping about the pavilion. On summer days the outlook was
bright and even gladsome; but at sundown in September, with a high wind,
and a heavy surf rolling in close along the links, the place told of
nothing but dead mariners and sea disaster. A ship beating to windward on
the horizon, and a huge truncheon of wreck half buried in the sands at my
feet, completed the innuendo of the scene.

The pavilion--it had been built by the last proprietor, Northmour's uncle,
a silly and prodigal virtuoso--presented little signs of age. It was two
stories in height, Italian in design, surrounded by a patch of garden in
which nothing had prospered but a few coarse flowers; and looked, with its
shuttered windows, not like a house that had been deserted, but like one
that had never been tenanted by man. Northmour was plainly from home;
whether, as usual, sulking in the cabin of his yacht, or in one of his
fitful and extravagant appearances in the world of society, I had, of
course, no means of guessing. The place had an air of solitude that
daunted even a solitary like myself; the wind cried in the chimneys with a
strange and wailing note; and it was with a sense of escape, as if I were
going indoors, that I turned away and, driving my cart before me, entered
the skirts of the wood.

The Sea-Wood of Graden had been planted to shelter the cultivated fields
behind, and check the encroachments of the blowing sand. As you advanced
into it from coastward, elders were succeeded by