re the main road crosses the stream, and is
consoled by leading to a big house--the Moonstock Inn.

The house in which my father lived so long--or rather, I should say, my
mother, while he was away with his regiment--and where we unfortunate
seven saw the light, stands about half-way down the little village,
being on the right-hand side of the road as you come down the valley
from the Moonstock bridge. Therefore it is on the further and upper side
of the street--if it can be called a street--from the valley and the
river and the meads below the mill, inasmuch as every bit of Shoxford,
and every particle of the parish also, has existence--of no mean sort,
as compared with other parishes, in its own esteem--on the right side of
the river Moon.

My father's house, in this good village, standing endwise to the street,
was higher at one end than at the other. That is to say, the ground came
sloping, or even falling, as fairly might be said, from one end to the
other of it, so that it looked like a Noah's ark tilted by Behemoth
under the stern-post. And a little lane, from a finely wooded hill, here
fell steeply into the "High Street" (as the grocer and the butcher loved
to call it), and made my father's house most distinct, by obeying a
good deal of its outline, and discharging in heavy rain a free supply of
water under the weather-board of our front-door. This front-door opened
on the little steep triangle formed by the meeting of lane and road,
while the back-door led into a long but narrow garden running along the
road, but raised some feet above it; the bank was kept up by a rough
stone wall crested with stuck-up snap-dragon and valerian, and
faced with rosettes and disks and dills of houseleek, pennywort, and
hart's-tongue.

Betsy and I were only just in time to see the old house as it used to
be; for the owner had died about half a year ago, and his grandson,
having proved his will, was resolved to make short work with it. The
poor house was blamed for the sorrows it had sheltered, and had the
repute of two spectres, as well as the pale shadow of misfortune. For my
dear father was now believed by the superstitious villagers to haunt the
old home of his happiness and love, and roam from room to room in search
of his wife and all his children. But his phantom was most careful not
to face that of his father, which stalked along haughtily, as behooved
a lord, and pointed forever to a red wound in its breast. No wonder,