. It was not the loneliness of
unfrequented nature, for there was a well-kept carriage road traversing
its dreariness; and even when the hillside was clothed with scanty
verdure, there were "outcrops" of smooth glistening weather-worn rocks
showing like bare brown knees under the all too imperfectly kilted
slopes. And at a little distance, lifting above a black drift of firs,
were the square rigid sky lines of Glenbogie House, standing starkly
against the cold, lingering northern twilight. As the vehicle turned,
and rolled between two square stone gate-posts, the long avenue before
him, though as well kept as the road, was but a slight improvement upon
the outer sterility, and the dark iron-gray rectangular mansion beyond,
guiltless of external decoration, even to the outlines of its small
lustreless windows, opposed the grim inhospitable prospect with an
equally grim inhospitable front. There were a few moments more of rapid
driving, a swift swishing over soft gravel, the opening of a heavy
door into a narrow vestibule, and then--a sudden sense of exquisitely
diffused light and warmth from an arched and galleried central hall, the
sounds of light laughter and subdued voices half lost in the airy space
between the lofty pictured walls; the luxury of color in trophies,
armor, and hangings; one or two careless groups before the recessed
hearth or at the centre table, and the halted figure of a pretty woman
on the broad, slow staircase. The contrast was sharp, ironical, and
bewildering.

So much so that the consul, when he had followed the servant to his
room, was impelled to draw aside the heavy window-curtains and look out
again upon the bleak prospect it had half obliterated. The wing in which
he was placed overhung a dark ravine or gully choked with shrubs and
brambles that grew in a new luxuriance. As he gazed a large black bird
floated upwards slowly from its depths, circled around the house with a
few quick strokes of its wing, and then sped away--a black bolt--in one
straight undeviating line towards the paling north. He still gazed into
the abyss--half expecting another, even fancying he heard the occasional
stir and flutter of obscure life below, and the melancholy call of
nightfowl. A long-forgotten fragment of old English verse began to haunt
him--

Hark! the raven flaps hys wing
In the briered dell belowe,
Hark! the dethe owl loude doth synge
To the night maers as thaie goe.

"No