It was an ancient and picturesque pile of building, this Rede Hall, standing on the slope of a hill, and presenting to the view of the visitors a long south side of red brick, in the Tudor style, in a state of indifferent repair, with a somewhat unkempt growth of ivy and other creepers hanging about it and almost choking a small door, of later date than the building, which was now the state entrance to the house.
The grass-grown state of the narrow garden-path which led to this door betrayed the fact that visits of state to the occupants of Rede Hall were a great rarity.
Beyond the main building, on the west side, was the Gray Barn, easily to be distinguished both by its color and by the ecclesiastical character of the blocked-up windows, in some of which the tracery was still almost perfect. The roof, however, was now of thatch, well-grown with moss and grass, lichen and tufts of wallflower; and the swallows built their nests under the eaves.
On this side of the house was the farmyard, surrounded by a high sandstone wall; and the space between the big barn and the dwelling was filled up by outbuildings, most of which were in a ruinous condition.
It was when they rode up to the common entrance of the farmhouse, which was on the east side of the house, that the visitors came to the most interesting and ancient part of the building. All this portion was built of sandstone, mellow with age and weather. And a huge, massive porch, with a small lodge on one side and a room above, formed a fitting entrance to what was now the farmhouse kitchen, but which had been, in old times, the hall of the mansion.
The door was open; and when the brigadier and his young companion had dismounted from their horses and stood inside the porch, they had full opportunity to note the details of one of the most picturesque scenes it was possible to find, while the great bell clanged, and an old woman came slowly forward to receive them.
Anything more peaceful, more homely, more utterly irreconcilable with the notion of lawlessness and nefarious deeds than the room and its occupants presented it was impossible to imagine.
At one end of the vast apartment, which was some forty feet long, and broad and lofty in proportion, a fire was built up on the iron dogs in the great open fireplace; and an iron pot hanging from a crane in the chimney, gave forth a savory smell.
Close by the fire, crouching in the warmest corner of the oak settle, with her back to the light, sat a woman who never turned at the visitors’ approach. On the opposite side of the hearth, but well in the corner of the room, another woman, large-boned and gaunt, with gray hair half-hidden by a large mob-cap, sat busy with her spinning-wheel. On his knees before the fire, with a mongrel dog on each side of him, was a withered and bent old man.
These, and the old woman who came to the door to speak with the strangers, were all the occupants of the huge apartment.