signs of age. It was two storeys in height, Italian in design,

surrounded by a patch of garden in which nothing had prospered but

a few coarse flowers; and looked, with its shuttered windows, not

like a house that had been deserted, but like one that had never

been tenanted by man. Northmour was plainly from home; whether, as

usual, sulking in the cabin of his yacht, or in one of his fitful

and extravagant appearances in the world of society, I had, of

course, no means of guessing. The place had an air of solitude

that daunted even a solitary like myself; the wind cried in the

chimneys with a strange and wailing note; and it was with a sense

of escape, as if I were going indoors, that I turned away and,

driving my cart before me, entered the skirts of the wood.

The Sea-Wood of Graden had been planted to shelter the cultivated

fields behind, and check the encroachments of the blowing sand. As

you advanced into it from coastward, elders were succeeded by other

hardy shrubs; but the timber was all stunted and bushy; it led a

life of conflict; the trees were accustomed to swing there all

night long in fierce winter tempests; and even in early spring, the

leaves were already flying, and autumn was beginning, in this

exposed plantation. Inland the ground rose into a little hill,

which, along with the islet, served as a sailing mark for seamen.

When the hill was open of the islet to the north, vessels must bear

well to the eastward to clear Graden Ness and the Graden Bullers.

In the lower ground, a streamlet ran among the trees, and, being

dammed with dead leaves and clay of its own carrying, spread out

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