dman that I looked, but at the house that
stared at me across the undulating sea of grass. It was a noble
building, of grey stone, in shape almost square, with many curious
buttresses and angles. The drive ran up to it with a grand sweep, and
upon the green that fronted it some big trees reared their stately
heads. In my time I'd heard a lot of talk about the stately homes of
England, but this was the first time I had ever set eyes on one. And to
think that this was my father's birthplace, the house where my ancestors
had lived for centuries! I could only stand and stare at it in sheer
amazement.

You see, my father had always been a very silent man, and though he used
sometimes to tell us yarns about scrapes he'd got into as a boy, and how
his father was a very stern man, and had sent him to a public school,
because his tutor found him unmanageable, we never thought that he'd
been anything very much.

To tell the truth, I felt a bit doubtful as to what I'd better do.
Somehow I was rather nervous about going up to the house and introducing
myself as a member of the family without any credentials to back my
assertion up; and yet, on the other hand, I did not want to go away and
have it always rankling in my mind that I'd seen the old place and been
afraid to go inside. My mind once made up, however, off I went, crossed
the park, and made towards the front door. On nearer approach, I
discovered that everything showed the same neglect I had noticed at the
lodge. The drive was overgrown with weeds; no carriage seemed to have
passed along it for ages. Shutters enclosed many of the windows, and
where they did not, not one but several of the panes were broken.
Entering the great stone porch, in which it would have been possible to
seat a score of people, I pulled the antique door-bell, and waited,
while the peal re-echoed down the corridors, for the curtain to go up on
the next scene.

Presently I heard footsteps approaching. A key turned in the lock, and
the great door swung open. An old man, whose years could hardly have
totalled less than seventy, stood before me, dressed in a suit of solemn
black, almost green with age. He inquired my business in a wheezy
whisper. I asked if Sir William Hatteras were at home. Informing me that
he would find out, he left me to ruminate on the queerness of my
position. In five minutes or so he returned, and signed to me to follow.

The hall was in keeping with the outside of the building