to creep through; but that is locked,—Chubb's lock, and Mr. Darrell keeps the key!--treasures for a palace! No, you can't peep through here—not a chink; but come on a little further,—mind your footing."
Skirting the wall, and still on the perilous ridge, Fairthorn crept on, formed an angle, and stopping short, clapped his eye to the crevice of some planks nailed rudely across a yawning aperture. Lionel found another crevice for himself, and saw, piled up in admired disorder, pictures, with their backs turned to a desolate wall, rare cabinets, and articles of curious furniture, chests, boxes, crates,—heaped pell-mell. This receptacle had been roughly floored in deal, in order to support its miscellaneous contents, and was lighted from a large window (not visible in front of the house), glazed in dull rough glass, with ventilators.
"These are the heavy things, and least costly things, that no one could well rob. The pictures here are merely curious as early specimens, intended for the old house, all spoiling and rotting; Mr. Darrell wishes them to do so, I believe! What he wishes must be done! my dear young sir: a prodigious mind; it is of granite!"
"I cannot understand it," said Lionel, aghast. "The last man I should have thought capriciously whimsical."
"Whimsical! Bless my soul! don't say such a word, don't, pray! or the roof will fall down upon us! Come away. You have seen all you can see. You must go first now; mind that loose stone there!"
Nothing further was said till they were out of the building; and Lionel felt like a knight of old who had been led into sepulchral halls by a wizard.
CHAPTER V.
The annals of empire are briefly chronicled in family records brought down to the present day, showing that the race of men is indeed "like leaves on trees, now green in youth, now withering on the ground." Yet to the branch the most bare will green leaves return, so long as the sap can remount to the branch from the root; but the branch which has ceased to take life from the root—hang it high, hang it low—is a prey to the wind and the woodman.
It was mid-day. The boy and his new friend were standing apart, as becomes silent anglers, on the banks of a narrow brawling rivulet, running through green pastures, half a mile
