I could neither
bribe nor persuade him. There was no alternative but to set out
through the mist with my bag on my shoulder.
Night was coming on. The moor was a vast wilderness of gorse.
The house loomed at the foot of it and beyond the loch that made
a sort of estuary for the open sea. Nor was this the only thing.
I got the impression as I tramped along that I was not alone on
the moor. I don't know out of what evidences the impression was
built up. I felt that someone was in the gorse beyond the road.
The house was closed up like a sleeping eye when I got before it.
It was a big, old, rambling stone house with a tangle of vines
half torn away by the winds: I hammered on the door and finally
an aged man-servant holding a candle high above his head let me
in.
This was the manner of my coming to Saint Conan's Landing.
I had some supper of cold meat brought in by this aged servant.
He was a shrunken derelict of a human figure. He was disturbed
at my arrival and ill at ease. But I thought there was relief
and welcome in his expression. The master would be in directly;
he would light a fire in the drawing-room and prepare a
bedchamber for me.
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