time, devoutly as I honour him, I cannot but count him intended for
thinkings of larger scope than such as then seemed characteristic of him.
I imagine his early history had affected his faculties, and influenced
the mode of their working. How indeed could it have been otherwise!




CHAPTER IV.


MY UNCLE'S ROOM, AND MY UNCLE IN IT.

At right angles to the long, black and white house, stood a building
behind it, of possibly earlier date, but uncertain intent. It had been
used for many things before my uncle's time--once as part of a small
brewery. My uncle was positive that, whether built for the purpose or
not, it had been used as a chapel, and that the house was originally the
out-lying cell of some convent. The signs on which he founded this
conclusion, I was never able to appreciate: to me, as containing my
uncle's study, the wonder-house of my childhood, it was far more
interesting than any history could have made it. It had very thick walls,
two low stories, and a high roof. Entering it from the court behind the
house, every portion of it would seem to an ordinary beholder quite
accounted for; but it might have suggested itself to a more comprehending
observer, that a considerable space must lie between the roof and the low
ceiling of the first floor, which was taken up with the servants' rooms.
Of the ground floor, part was used as a dairy, part as a woodhouse, part
for certain vegetables, while part stored the turf dug for fuel from the
neighbouring moor.