I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house⁠—scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, “quite a desolate spot.” It was as still as a church on a weekday: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.

“Can there be life here?” I asked.

Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement⁠—that narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange.