gable and in the other in a low parapet which ran horizontally to join another gable, similarly shaped to that in front, which formed the coping of the side wall of the house. These gables were peculiar, each converging in a series of steep right-angled steps to a chamfered apex which bore with pompous dignity a large round ball of polished grey granite and, each in turn, merging into and becoming continuous with the parapet which, ridged and serrated regularly and deeply after the fashion of a battlement, fettered them together, forming thus a heavy stone-linked chain which embraced the body of the house like a manacle.

At the angle of the side gable and the front wall, and shackled likewise by this encircling fillet of battlement, was a short round tower, ornamented in its middle by a deep-cut diamond-shaped recess, carved beneath into rounded, diminishing courses which fixed it to the angle of the wall, and rising upwards to crown itself in a turret which carried a thin, reedy flagstaff. The heaviness of its upper dimensions made the tower squat, deformed, and gave to it the

appearance of a broad frowning forehead disfigured by a deep grooved stigma; while the two small embrasured windows which pierced it brooded from beneath the brow like secret, close-set eyes.

Immediately below this tower stood the narrow doorway of the house, the lesser proportion of its width giving it a meagre, inhospitable look, like a thin repellent mouth, its sides ascending above the horizontal lintel in a steep ogee curve encompassing a shaped and gloomy filling of darkly stained glass and ending in a sharp lancet point. The windows of the dwelling, like the doorway, were narrow and unbevelled, having the significance merely of apertures stabbed

through the thickness of the walls, grudgingly admitting light, yet sealing the interior from observation.

The whole aspect of the house was veiled, forbidding, sinister; its purpose likewise hidden and obscure.