The new proprietor looked up, and found himself at the foot of a considerable
eminence standing boldly out into the sea, which, in the high spring tides,
washed three sides of it, and had year by year encroached upon its area, until
now its farther advance was resisted by the solid granite foundations of the little
peninsula, washed bare of all disguise, and frowning defiantly down at the waters
which dashed angrily upon it, and withdrew only to return yet more vehemently.

Upon the crest of the promontory stood a low stone building of peculiar
architecture, the main body of the house describing a parallelogram of no

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

considerable extent, but throwing out toward the sea a long and narrow gallery,
terminating in a circular tower of only one story in height, with a domed
roof.

The thick walls and narrow windows, combined with the chill air of abandonment
hanging over all, gave the place a peculiarly gloomy appearance.

John Gillies sat on his horse perfectly quiet, and surveyed his inheritance
and future home.

A mighty struggle was going on in his mind. This dreary house, this savage
scenery, this imperative mystery, all were as diametrically opposed to any wish
he had ever formed, as to any experience he had ever known. The forty prosaic
and methodical years of his life rose up before him, each one summoning
him to turn his back upon these strange new claims, and to return to the life
that he knew, and the assured future it promised him.

On the other hand lay the obstinate pride of the man, his stubborn adherence
to any course or opinion he had deliberately adopted, and with these
mingled, though Heaven only knows whence in that sterile nature it had sprung,
an impulse to abandon himself to this mystery so unexpectedly involving him,
to plunge into the new life and new interests, alien to his habits though they
were, with the same energy and dominance of will, which had for years given
him the first place among those with whom he had been associated.

Two minutes John Gillies sat in the sharp north wind, staring up at the old
house of Cragness, and in those two minutes he had passed the crisis of his
life, and decided not only his own destiny, but that of a number of other
persons.

Or was it perhaps that his destiny decided him?

James meantime had ridden up the hill, and was now knocking vigorously at
a door in the back of the house.

“It's no good to go to the front, sir,” said he, as Mr. Gillies drew rein beside
him. “There's a door there, but it's never opened, and old Lazarus burrows
this way somewhere, I believe. Here he comes.”

Slow steps were heard approaching along the passage, and then the harsh
cry of rusty bolts withdrawn by a feeble hand. The door presently opened, and
an old man, small of stature, with long white hair, faint blue eyes, and a skin
blanched as if by long exclusion from the sun and air, stood upon the threshold.

“How are you, Lazarus Graves?” said James, heartily. “Here's the new
master of Cragness, Mr. Gillies, come to take possession. Stir yourself, old
man, and show him in from this freezing cold.”

The old man looked attentively in the groom's face until he had finished, and
then said,

“Mr. Reginald is not at home to-day. You had better call again.”

“Not at home! No, nor he won't be, old Lazarus. Don't you remember
Mr. Robinson came down here last week, and told you he was dead, and had left
the place to Mr. Gillies? This is the gentleman, and you had better let him in,
and get a fire and some dinner going as fast as possible.”

The dim blue eyes wandered painfully from one strange face to the other, and
then suddenly overflowed with tears.

“Mr. Reginald dead!” said he. “Why, I carried him in my arms when he
was a baby and I had boys of my own. O, no, he couldn't be dead, and poor
old Lazarus Graves left alive.”

“He's more broke than I thought, sir,” said James aside to Gillies, who

The castle by the sea [See the Story, “A Bit of Blue Ribbon.” [figure description] 451EAF. Illustration page. A large stone castle on the side of a cliff, next to a stormy sea.[end figure description]

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

stood staring perplexedly at the old man. “It's the news of his master's death
has been working on him. He was quite smart before that. Hadn't you better
come back to Bonniemeer, sir? I am sure Mr. Vaughn would wish it. You
can't be comfortable here.”

“To Bonniemeer!” repeated Gillies, quickly. “Certainly not, James. I
shall do very well here, I have no doubt, if this old man can be got to let us
in.”

“That's easy done,” said the self-assured groom, stepping into the passage
and taking Lazarus by the arm.

“Come, father,” said he, “take us to the fire wherever you keep it. This is
the kitchen, isn't it?”

And he pushed open the door of a cavernous brick-floored apartment, in a
corner of whose wide chimney a handful of fire withered away, leaving but small
impression upon the sepulchral air. A broken chair, and a simmering saucepan
hinted at the occupancy and uses of the place.

“Cold comfort, sir, I'm afraid,” said James, standing aside for Mr. Gillies to
enter. “But I suppose there isn't a spark of fire in the house besides.”

“Fire! There's fire in the library. Mr. Reginald might come any time
you know, so I'm always ready, and so is his dinner,” interposed Lazarus,
eagerly.

“Well, then, suppose he has come, that's all,” said James. “Here is Mr.
Reginald, a little changed by his life in foreign parts, but wanting the fire and
the dinner just the same as if you remembered him.”

The old man looked bewildered. Gillies, ill-pleased with the position, but
hesitating how to assume his proper place in his own house and in the conversation,
frowned slightly, and moved toward the fire. The eyes of the old servant
followed him, and returned dissatisfied to the smiling and assured face of the
groom, who, without being in the least superior to his condition of life, had the
art, so useful in every condition, of organization.

“It's all right, I tell you, Lazarus,” said he. “There's Mr. Reginald come
back to stay awhile, and you must just go on as you used to when he was here
before. Now bring us to the library.”

The old man shook his white head dubiously, but turned to leave the kitchen.
James approached Mr. Gillies.

“I hope you won't think me forward, sir, but I have known Lazarus Graves
a good many years, and I thought perhaps I could humor him into doing as he'd
ought to better than you could. He's so broken that I don't believe he really
knows whether you are Mr. Reginald Vaughn or not.”

“He's crazy. I don't like crazy people. It's a very irregular way of doing
business to make him think I am some one else. Besides Mr. Reginald Vaughn
is dead, and I don't like using a dead man's name,” muttered Gillies, discontentedly,
as he walked toward the door.

James shrugged his shoulders, and followed.

Pursuing the echoing foot-falls of their guide, the two men traversed a long
passage, mounted some steps, and found him unlocking a small door deep sunk
in the thickness of the wall.

“Hope you'll excuse me, sir, but I wouldn't let the old fellow keep the key
of this door,” whispered James. “He'll lock you in, and forget all about it, and
may be die in a fit and leave you to starve.”

Gillies nodded, and, the door being at last opened, followed the old janitor

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

into a dark passage, which he concluded to be the gallery noticed as connecting
the rotunda with the main building.

It was pierced with several windows, closed by shutters, and admitting the
light only at small openings in the form of crosses. At the end of this gallery,
Lazarus Graves unlocked another door, and, throwing it open, said in a cheery
voice,

“There, Mr. Reginald, I've kept it dusted and aired, and since the cold
came, I've had a fire in it mostly, to keep the chill off in case you came sudden.'

Without reply, Mr. Gillies passed in at the open door, and looked about
him.

The room was large and lofty. As the exterior promised, the form was circular,
the ceiling domed.

Walls and ceiling alike were panelled with a rich dark wood, and the floor
was of oak, partially covered with a heavy Eastern carpet. In the stone fire-place
smouldered a fragment of drift-wood, relic of some forgotten wreck, above
it hung rusty arms surrounding an heraldic device like that holding a similar
position at Bonniemeer. Opposite to the door the circular form of the room
was broken by a deep bay window containing a small table, a chair, and footstool.

Approaching this window, Gillies saw that it faced, and, indeed, overhung
the sea, being thrown out beyond the face of the precipice from whose verge
sprung the outer wall of the tower.

“I've kept your chair in the old place, Mr. Reginald,” piped Lazarus. “You
didn't use to like to have it moved, so I've been careful, and that's the same
book you left on the table. I'd a notion once to put it up, but thought better on
it.”

Gillies raised the little volume from the reading-desk beside him. It was
“The Philosophy of the Supernatural.” He threw it down, and shivering a
little, walked toward the fire.

“I've dusted the books once in a while, but the rats have been at them some,
I'm afraid,” pursued old Lazarus, too much engrossed in discharging his conscience
of its trust to look attentively at his recovered master. Approaching
the wall, he drew back first one panel and then another, showing that the space
between them and the outer wall had been finished in sunken book-cases, well
filled with volumes, most of them in the dark leather or ghastly vellum of the
antique bindings.

“That will do,” said Mr. Gillies, speaking for the first time. “You can go
now, both of you.”

Lazarus Graves turned, and fixed his watery eyes upon the speaker with a
startled expression, and the slow cloud of perplexity settled again upon his
face. He turned to James, who, standing respectfully near the door, waited to
be dismissed.

“What did you say about Mr. Reginald, young man?” asked he.

“Why,” said James, slowly, “what I meant to tell you was, that Mr. Reginald
isn't coming back any more, but that this gentleman is in his place. Mr.
Gillies is his name.”

The old man shook his head positively.

“He'll come back,” said he. “His last words were, `Keep everything just
as it is, old Lazarus, and I'll be back some day before you know it.' And I've

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

been very careful to keep everything as it was, and he'll be back, you may depend
upon it.”

“Well, till he comes, he wants you to treat this gentleman just as if it were
himself,” said James, slightly changing his tactics. “You're to do the best you
can, and treat Mr. Gillies as if he were the master.”

“Did he send that word?” asked Lazarus, hesitatingly.

“Yes, just those very words,” replied the groom, promptly.

“O well, then, its all right,” and the cloud vanished from the troubled old
face, as Lazarus hobbled out of the room, and returned to his kitchen.

“Can I do anything for you at Carrick, Mr. Gillies?” asked James, with the
door in his hand. “I shall be there with Burroughs's horse this afternoon.”

Mr. Gillies considered a moment, and then said, “You may ask the landlord
to send me some provisions at the same time with my trunks, and you may ask
if there is any person not an idiot or a lunatic who will come here and do the
necessary work of the house.”

“A man or woman, sir?” asked James, innocently.

“A man, of course,” replied Gillies, promptly, adding, under his breath, “A
woman indeed!”

“Yes, sir; I will see to it. Good-morning, sir.”

“Good-morning, and here, James, is something for yourself.”

“No, I thank you, sir. Mr. Vaughn pays me well, and never wants any of
us to take presents. Good-morning.” And James left the room with quite
the air of a Brutus.

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