blooded my nose in
the orchard, and the very morning ye decamped ye borrowed half a crown
of me, and never paid it back."

A sudden something prompted me to put my hand in my pocket. I took out
half a crown, and handed it to him without a word. He took it, looked at
it longingly, put it in his pocket, took it out again, ruminated a
moment, and then reluctantly handed it back to me.

"Nay, nay! my laddie, keep your money, keep your money. Ye can send me
the Catullus." Then to himself, unconscious that he was speaking his
thoughts aloud: "It was a good edition, and I have no doubt would bring
five shillings any day."

From one room we passed into another, and yet another. They were all
alike--shut up, dust-ridden, and forsaken. And yet with it all what a
noble place it was--one which any man might be proud to call his own.
And to think that it was all going to rack and ruin because of the
miserly nature of its owner. In the course of our ramble I discovered
that he kept but two servants, the old man who had admitted me to his
presence, and his wife, who, as that peculiar phrase has it, cooked and
did for him. I discovered later that he had not paid either of them
wages for some years past, and that they only stayed on with him because
they were too poor and proud to seek shelter elsewhere.

When we had inspected the house we left it by a side door, and crossed a
courtyard to the stables. There the desolation was, perhaps, even more
marked than in the house. The great clock on the tower above the main
building had stopped at a quarter to ten on some long-forgotten day, and
a spider now ran his web from hand to hand. At our feet, between the
stones, grass grew luxuriantly, thick moss covered the coping of the
well, the doors were almost off their hinges, and rats scuttled through
the empty loose boxes at our approach. So large was the place, that
thirty horses might have found a lodging comfortably, and as far as I
could gather, there was room for half as many vehicles in the
coach-houses that stood on either side. The intense quiet was only
broken by the cawing of the rooks in the giant elms overhead, the
squeaking of the rats, and the low grumbling of my uncle's voice as he
pointed out the ruin that was creeping over everything.

Before we had finished our inspection it was lunch time, and we returned
to the house. The meal was served in the same room in which I had made
my relative's acquaintance an hour before. It