now
November; the day was raw and cold; and a thick drizzling rain was
beginning to fall. A dreary stillness reigned all around, broken only at
intervals by the screams of the sea-fowl that hovered over the lake, on
whose dark and troubled waters was dimly descried a little boat, plied
by one solitary being.

"What a scene!" at length Lady Juliana exclaimed, shuddering as she
spoke. "Good God, what a scene! How I pity the unhappy wretches who are
doomed to dwell in such a place! and yonder hideous grim house--it makes
me sick to look at it. For Heaven's sake, bid him drive on." Another
significant look from the driver made the colour mount to Douglas's
cheek, as he stammered out, "Surely it can't be; yet somehow I don't
know. Pray, my lad," setting down one of the glasses, and addressing the
post-boy, "what is the name of that house?"

"Hoose!" repeated the driver; "ca' ye thon a hoose? Thon's gude Glenfern
Castle."

Lady Juliana, not understanding a word he said, sat silently wondering
at her husband's curiosity respecting such a wretched-looking place.

"Impossible! you must be mistaken, my lad: why, what's become of all the
fine wood that used to surround it?"

"Gin you mean a wheen auld firs, there's some of them to the fore yet,"
pointing to two or three tall, bare, scathed Scotch firs, that scarcely
bent their stubborn heads to the wind, that now began to howl around
them.

"I insist upon it that you are mistaken; you must have wandered from
the right road," cried the now alarmed Douglas in a loud voice, which
vainly attempted to conceal his agitation.

"We'll shune see that," replied the phlegmatic Scot, who, having
rested his horses and affixed a drag to the wheel, was about to proceed,
when Lady Juliana, who now began to have some vague suspicion of the
truth, called to him to stop, and, almost breathless with alarm,
inquired of her husband the meaning of what had passed.

He tried to force a smile, as he said, "It seems our journey is nearly
ended; that fellow persists in asserting that that is Glenfern, though I
can scarcely think it. If it is, it is strangely altered since I left it
twelve years ago."

For a moment Lady Juliana was too much alarmed to make a reply; pale and
speechless, she sank back in the carriage; but the motion of it, as it
began to proceed, roused her to a sense of her situation, and she burst
into tears and exclamations.

The driver, who attributed it all to fears at desce