“That is my name,” I answered. “You have come to take me to Mr. Ravenor?”
“If you will be so good as to follow me, sir.”
I took up my cap and did so, taking long, swinging strides up the steep ascent, hoping thereby to gain his side and ask him a few questions about the place. But he prevented this by hurrying on when I was close behind him; so, after the third attempt I gave it up, and contented myself by looking around me as much as I could, and making the most of the short walk.
On one side of the drive—I had been along few highways as wide—was a tall yew hedge, which shut out little from my view, for the thick black pine-wood which overtopped and formed so striking a background to the grand old Castle had never been thinned in this direction, and stretched away in a wide, irregular belt, skirting the long line of out-buildings to the hills and beyond. But on the right hand only a low ring-fence separated us from the grounds immediately in front of the Castle, which a sudden bend in the sharply winding road brought into full view.
My absolute ignorance of architecture forbids my attempting to describe it, save in its general effect. I remember even now what that effect was upon me when I stood for the first time almost at its foot. At a distance its frowning battlements and worn grey turrets had a majestic appearance; but, standing as I did then, within a few hundred yards of its vast, imposing front, and almost under the shadow of its walls and towers, its effect was nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I almost held my breath as I gazed upon it and the terrace lawns, sloping away below, smooth-shaven, velvetty, the very perfection of English turf. Not that I had much time to look about me. On the contrary, my conductor never once slackened his pace, and when I involuntarily paused for a moment, with eyes riveted upon the magnificent pile before me, he looked round sharply and beckoned me impatiently to proceed.
“Mr. Ravenor is not used to be kept waiting, sir,” he remarked, “and will be expecting us.”
I pulled myself together with an effort and followed him more closely. We passed under a bridge of solid masonry, moss-encrusted, and indented with the storms of ages and the ruder marks of battering-ram and cannon, across a wide, circular courtyard protected by massive iron gates, which rolled slowly open before us with many ponderous creakings and gratings, as though reluctant to admit a stranger, into a great, white, stone-paved hall, dimly lighted, yet sufficiently so to enable me to perceive the long rows of armoured warriors which lined the walls, and the lances and spears and shields which flashed above their heads.
We passed straight across it, our footsteps awakening clattering echoes as they fell on the polished flags, through a door on the opposite side, into a room which nearly took my breath away. From the high, vaulted ceiling to the floor, on every side of the apartment, were books—nothing but books.
Two men—one old, the other of about my own age—looked up from a table as we entered and paused in their work, which seemed to be cataloguing; but my guide passed them without remark or notice, and walked straight across the room to where a crimson curtain, hanging down in thick folds, concealed a black oak door. Here he knocked, and I waited by his side until the answer came in that clear, low tone, which, though I had heard it but once or twice before, I could have recognised in a thousand. Then my guide turned the handle and, silently motioning me to enter, left me.