ld be climbing there. Then
his carriage took a turn of the path, and he saw suddenly and quietly,
like a long, low, sunset cloud, a long, low house, mellow in the mild
light of sunset. All the six friends compared notes afterwards and
quarrelled; but they all agreed that in some unaccountable way the
place reminded them of their boyhood. It was either this elm-top or that
crooked path, it was either this scrap of orchard or that shape of a
window; but each man of them declared that he could remember this place
before he could remember his mother.

When the carriages eventually rolled up to a large, low, cavernous
gateway, another man in the same uniform, but wearing a silver star
on the grey breast of his coat, came out to meet them. This impressive
person said to the bewildered Syme--

"Refreshments are provided for you in your room."

Syme, under the influence of the same mesmeric sleep of amazement, went
up the large oaken stairs after the respectful attendant. He entered a
splendid suite of apartments that seemed to be designed specially for
him. He walked up to a long mirror with the ordinary instinct of his
class, to pull his tie straight or to smooth his hair; and there he saw
the frightful figure that he was--blood running down his face from where
the bough had struck him, his hair standing out like yellow rags of rank
grass, his clothes torn into long, wavering tatters. At once the whole
enigma sprang up, simply as the question of how he had got there, and
how he was to get out again. Exactly at the same moment a man in blue,
who had been appointed as his valet, said very solemnly--

"I have put out your clothes, sir."

"Clothes!" said Syme sardonically. "I have no clothes except these," and
he lifted two long strips of his frock-coat in fascinating festoons, and
made a movement as if to twirl like a ballet girl.

"My master asks me to say," said the attendant, "that there is a fancy
dress ball tonight, and that he desires you to put on the costume that
I have laid out. Meanwhile, sir, there is a bottle of Burgundy and some
cold pheasant, which he hopes you will not refuse, as it is some hours
before supper."

"Cold pheasant is a good thing," said Syme reflectively, "and Burgundy
is a spanking good thing. But really I do not want either of them so
much as I want to know what the devil all this means, and what sort of
costume you have got laid out for me. Where is it?"

The servant lifted off a kind of