He always
wore, I remember, an old-fashioned dress. Velvet knee-breeches, a
white stock, black shoes with buckles. I remember that his hands were
damp and hair grew in bushes out of his ears. Well, I saw him once or
twice and he filled me with terror like a figure out of the tapestry
up at the Castle. Then he died.
"Our house was small and badly shaped, full of dark corners, and after
his death he seemed to me to haunt the place. He figured Death to me
and until I was quite old, until I went to Rugby, I fancied that he
was sitting in a dark corner, on a chair, waiting, with his hands on
his lap, until the time came for him to take me. Sometimes I would
fancy that I heard him moving from one room to another, bringing his
chair with him. Then I began to have a dream, a dream that frequently
recurred all the time that I was growing up. It was a dream about a
huge dark house in a huge dark forest. It was early morning, the light
just glimmering between the thick damp trees. A large party of people
gathered together in a high empty room prepared for an expedition.
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