window panes.

THE MUNIMENT ROOM

My uncle had succeeded late in life to the family estate in the north of
England, which was situated on the wild moorland of north-west
Yorkshire.

With him the entail would end, and though it was known that the estate
had been much impoverished and was heavily mortgaged, still the
succession was not a thing 'to be sneezed at.' So my mother, his sister,
herself a practical Yorkshire woman, phrased it, and consequently I was
bid to accept with gratitude an invitation to visit my uncle in the home
of his fathers.

Thither, therefore, I went, yet reluctantly, for my uncle was reputed
somewhat eccentric, and a great antiquary, and as he had been early
reconciled to Rome and ordained a priest, whereas I came of a sound
Protestant stock, I feared we might not find each other's company
entirely sympathetic. 'I shall only find in him,' I thought, 'a "snuffy
priest," and he in me only an Oxford cub.'

A long drive over the moorland in a pelting storm of sleet and rain was
not encouraging, nor was the companionship of the old, deaf Scots
groom, who drove me, exhilarating, for he persisted, as the ancient deaf
not uncommonly do, in regarding a stranger as a personal grievance
gratuitously thrust upon him.

Thus if I blamed the weather he transferred the fault upon myself for
having chosen to come upon such a stormy day; and when I inquired after
my uncle's health he replied that he was 'well enough so long as folk
didn't come hindering him from his studies.'

To this I replied humbly that I had heard he was writing a book upon his
family, which was one of the most ancient in the county, and that it was
a pity he should be the last of so old and formerly so famous a stock.

'Ay,' retorted my driver, with a glance of scorn out of the tail of his
eye, as he flicked upon his white steed, 'ay, there'll maybe be a sair
down-come when he's depairted.'

After this shaft I sank into silence, and was relieved when I saw the
grey, buttressed gables of Startington Hall appear below us grouped amid
its trees.

'It certainly looks like a haunted house,' I remarked aloud, though I
was merely speaking to myself, 'even though the tradition has no
foundation of fact.'

'How do ye ken it's haunted?' retorted my companion, whose hearing
seemed to vary with his mood. 'And even if 'tis, there's naething can
steer the maister, for tak awa Papistry, he has a hairt o' gold--the
bairns aboot here ju