dwelled so long in the Carew domains, so careful had he been not to intrude his presence inopportunely on its master, that he had never so much as seen, except at a distance, the mansion to which he was now an invited guest.  How grand it showed, as his elastic step drew near it, with tower and turret standing up against the gloomy November sky, and all its broad-winged front alive with light!  How good it would be to call so fine a place his home!  How excellent to be made heir to the childless man who ruled it, and who could leave it to whomsoever his whim might choose!

It was unusual for a guest to approach Crompton for the first time on foot.  The Squire’s jovial friends used for the most part strange conveyances, such as tandems and randoms, and the great flower-beds in the lawn in front gave sign that some such equipage had been lately driven up not altogether with dexterity.  It is difficult at all times to drive “unicorn,” and more so if the horses are not used to that method of progression, and still more so if the charioteer is somewhat inebriated; and all these conditions had been fulfilled a few minutes previously in the case of Mr. Frederick Chandos, a young gentleman of twenty-one years of age, but of varied experience, who had just arrived that day on his first visit.  But when Yorke appeared at the front-door, there was no less attention paid to him than if he had driven up with four-in-hand.  Obsequious footmen assisted him to take off his wrappers in the great hall, whose vastness dwarfed the billiard-table in its centre to bagatelle proportions.  A profusion of wax-lights—­and no others were permitted at Crompton, save in the servants’ offices—­showed eight shining pillars of rare marble, and a grand staircase broad enough for a coach-and-four, and up which, indeed, Carew had ridden horses for a wager; while all the walls were hung with huge-figured tapestry—­“The Tent of Darius” and “The Entry of Alexander into Babylon,” both miracles of patient art.  The grandeur of the stately place was marred, however, by signs of revel and rough usage.  The Persian monarch, spared by his Grecian conqueror, had been deprived, by some more modern barbarian, of his eyes; while the face of his royal consort had been cut out of the threaded picture, to judge by the ragged end of the canvas, by a penknife.  The very pillars were notched in places, as though some mad revelers had striven to climb to the pictured ceiling, from which gods and men looked down upon them with amaze; the thick-piled carpet of the stairs was cut and torn, doubtless by horses’ hoofs; and here and there a gap in the gilt balusters showed where they had been torn away in brutal frolic.  A groom of the chambers preceded the new guest up stairs, and introduced him to a bachelor’s apartment, small, but well furnished in the modern style, whither his portmanteau had been already taken.  “Squire has given orders, Sir,” said he, respectfully, “that he should be informed as soon as you arrived.  What name shall I say, Sir?  But here he is himself.”