y traffic of any kind. I was looking from the
chaise-window, and soon detected the object of which, for some time, my
eye had been in search. Barwyke Hall was a large, quaint house, of that
cage-work fashion known as "black-and-white," in which the bars and
angles of an oak framework contrast, black as ebony, with the white
plaster that overspreads the masonry built into its interstices. This
steep-roofed Elizabethan house stood in the midst of park-like grounds
of no great extent, but rendered imposing by the noble stature of the
old trees that now cast their lengthening shadows eastward over the
sward, from the declining sun.

The park-wall was gray with age, and in many places laden with ivy. In
deep gray shadow, that contrasted with the dim fires of evening
reflected on the foliage above it, in a gentle hollow, stretched a lake
that looked cold and black, and seemed, as it were, to skulk from
observation with a guilty knowledge.

I had forgot that there was a lake at Barwyke; but the moment this
caught my eye, like the cold polish of a snake in the shadow, my
instinct seemed to recognize something dangerous, and I knew that the
lake was connected, I could not remember how, with the story I had heard
of this place in my boyhood.

I drove up a grass-grown avenue, under the boughs of these noble trees,
whose foliage, dyed in autumnal red and yellow, returned the beams of
the western sun gorgeously.

We drew up at the door. I got out, and had a good look at the front of
the house; it was a large and melancholy mansion, with signs of long
neglect upon it; great wooden shutters, in the old fashion, were barred,
outside, across the windows; grass, and even nettles, were growing thick
on the courtyard, and a thin moss streaked the timber beams; the plaster
was discolored by time and weather, and bore great russet and yellow
stains. The gloom was increased by several grand old trees that crowded
close about the house.

I mounted the steps, and looked round; the dark lake lay near me now, a
little to the left. It was not large; it may have covered some ten or
twelve acres; but it added to the melancholy of the scene. Near the
centre of it was a small island, with two old ash-trees, leaning toward
each other, their pensive images reflected in the stirless water. The
only cheery influence of this scene of antiquity, solitude, and neglect
was that the house and landscape were warmed with the ruddy western
beams. I knocked,