About mid-day Mr. Tuke sat himself down, like a man thoroughly¹ wearied, in his great flagged hall—which, with a fancifulness of conceit², he had dubbed³ his dining-room—and summarized, with a completely depressed⁴ air, the fruits of his morning’s exploration. Briefly⁵, these included, in the matter of “furnished apartments,” the chamber⁶ in which he rested—whereof the plainest of necessaries was comprised in a table and a few chairs; his bedroom, already described; two little closets in the north wing, appropriated to Dennis and his sister, and very modestly equipped; and a kitchen embellished⁷ with a basketful of odd pots and pans. For the rest, a score of rooms, large and small—of direct access, or approached by way of tortuous⁸ passages, whereby unexpected steps to nowhere were the least harmful of many pitfalls⁹ and obstructions—represented the present value of his inheritance, and so far as they went, a purely¹⁰ negative one, inasmuch as it seemed that the small fortune that would be required to put them into a moderate state of repair, would be sufficient to purchase elsewhere a messuage in sound and habitable condition.

 

And, without, it had been the same. The stables, substantial as the house, were in a like condition of neglect. His horse he had found ensconced in a battered¹¹ stall and feeding out of a bushel basket. All the contiguous offices, of less

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