It is rudely built, but roomy and comfortable.
Behind it, on the summit of the hill
the ruins spread out to a considerable extent
grass-grown, and moss-covered.

In front of the house stand enormous horse-
chestnuts; beyond which is a low stone-wall:
then the fields sweep gently down for a
mile and a half, till you come to the high-
road; beyond which flows the little river
Skarf, celebrated for its trout; and half a
mile past that, lies Heatherslack, a considerable
village for those parts. The view is
bounded by a wide stretch of barren moors,
and the clouded summits of some distant hills.

The snow lies long among the nooks and
corners of the ruins, after it has disappeared
from the whole countryside; and the winds run
riot on the summit of Grayrigg Stoup, when
all is warm and tranquil in the valley below.

Mark Hurlstone held the farm, on a lease
from the Copplehursts, when I went to him,
a lad of sixteen. His father and grandfather
before him had held it on the same terms; and
it was said that, in the old times, the
Hurlstones had been henchmen, or retainers, to
the great family at the Grange. Mark was a
widower; and his two daughters, Grace and
Letty, managed his household. He was
getting into years when I first knew him: a
tall, big-boned man, somewhat bowed at the
shoulders; with iron-grey hair and iron-
grey eyebrows, thick and beetling; beneath
which flashed forth two dark restless eyes,
whose fire neither time nor age could subdue.
He was well known for miles round Heatherslack
as a local preacher, in behalf of one of
the numerous religious sects, which, even
then, had penetrated into the most primitive
parts of the north country. He generally
preached in the open air; but, on wet days,
the loan of some friend's barn was usually
obtained. Whether the day were wet or
fine, his congregation was sure to be a
numerous one; and his rude eloquence, and
undoubted earnestness, seldom failed in
having their wished-for effect, in inducing
one or more of his auditors to become
converts to his peculiar creed.

His fanaticism in religious matters coloured
the whole of his daily life. He governed his
little household with a rod of iron, and judged
everything by the texts of a creed that knew
neither toleration nor mercy beyond the
narrow circle of its own elect. His imperious
will, his irritability at trifles, his unsociable
disposition, his entire disbelief in the harmony
and beauty of the outer world, his daily
readings from the Bible to his family—principally
chapters from the Prophets, breathing
denunciation and woe to a lost Israel,—the
long prayer with which he concluded, full of
groans and strange cries, to which the night-
wind outside moaned a dreary chorus: all
these will be as apparent to you as if he were
personally before you. Yet he was not without
a certain largeness of disposition, and
once forgave a great injury on receiving a
solemn promise from the man who had
wronged him that he would read two chapters
of the Bible daily, for twelve months to come.

Grace, his eldest daughter, was about
sixteen years old at the time of which I write;
and Letty, two years younger. On Grace
had devolved from quite a child the entire
care and management of the household; and
such a wise, thrifty little housekeeper did she
make, that even her father deferred to her in
all domestic matters, while to Letty she was
both mother and sister in one. A tall graceful
girl, with a pale olive complexion, which
not all the sun and wind that visited Grayrigg
could embrown; grave dark eyes; a
low voice; and a quiet thoughtful way of
going about things, befitting one on whom so
many cares devolved.

But Letty, how shall I describe her? A
bird of the summer woods, ever singing, ever
gay. She had caught a sunbeam, and held it
prisoner in her heart; but it laughed through
her large blue eyes, and quivered in her voice,
and nourished the delicate roses in her cheeks,
and shone up through the sheaf of her golden
hair, and declared its presence by a thousand
tokens.

I was sent to Grayrigg as soon as I had
finished my schooling, to learn to become a
farmer under old Mark Hurlstone; hoping
to possess in time a farm of my own. Mark
and my father had been close friends for
many years; so, for the sake of that friendship,
the old farmer received me as an inmate
under his roof; and welcomed me, with grim
kindness, to my future home.

Friendships soon ripen between young
people in country places; in a week after my
arrival, I felt quite at home at the Grange,
and perfectly contented. Letty and I got on
famously together. She called me her slave,
and ordered me about in her sweet imperious
way, and had a thousand tasks for me to
perform. If I did not obey her orders
promptly, or if I displeased her in any way,
I was punished by having my hair pulled, or
by being pinched sharply in the arm; or was,
perhaps, forbidden to speak to her again that
day; my sentence, in the latter case, being
generally commuted in the course of an hour
or two, it being impossible for her to exist
without having some one to chatter to; "and
Grace, you know, is such a quiet girl, and has
so little to say for herself." And then, in
frosty weather, I must teach my lady to slide
on the ponds; and keep fast hold of her hand
to prevent her from falling; or we must snowball
each other till we were tired. And then,
in spring, I must find out the birds' nests for
her; and take her to look at the little
speckled eggs— merely to look, and not to
carry them away; "for you know, Thurston,
that would be cruel; and father would be
ever so angry with me, if he thought I had
so much as touched them."

Each season brought its own peculiar
delights. What could be pleasanter in summer