Annandale derives its chief importance from the fact

that two railway lines intersect there. The Chicago

Express paused only for a moment while the porter deposited

my things beside me on the platform. Light

streamed from the open door of the station; a few

idlers paced the platform, staring into the windows of

the cars; the village hackman languidly solicited my

business. Suddenly out of the shadows came a tall,

curious figure of a man clad in a long ulster. As I

write, it is with a quickening of the sensation I received

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on the occasion of my first meeting with Bates. His

lank gloomy figure rises before me now, and I hear his

deep melancholy voice, as, touching his hat respectfully,

be said: "Beg pardon, sir; is this Mr. Glenarm? I am Bates

from Glenarm House. Mr. Pickering wired me to meet

you, sir."

"Yes; to be sure," I said.

The hackman was already gathering up my traps,

and I gave him my trunk-checks.

"How far is it?" I asked, my eyes resting, a little regretfully,

I must confess, on the rear lights of the vanishing

train.

"Two miles, sir," Bates replied. "There's no way

over but the hack in winter. In summer the steamer

comes right into our dock."

"My legs need stretching; I'll walk," I suggested,

drawing the cool air into my lungs. It was a still, starry

October night, and its freshness was grateful after the

hot sleeper. Bates accepted the suggestion without

comment. We walked to the end of the platform, where

the hackman was already tumbling my trunks about,

and after we had seen them piled upon his nondescript

wagon, I followed Bates down through the broad quiet

street of the village. There was more of Annandale

than I had imagined, and several tall smoke-stacks

loomed here and there in the thin starlight.

"Brick-yards, sir," said Bates, waving his hand at

the stacks. "It's a considerable center for that kind of

business."

"Bricks without straw?" I asked, as we passed a

radiant saloon that blazed upon the board walk.

"Beg pardon, sir, but such places are the ruin of

men,"-on which remark I based a mental note that

Bates wished to impress me with his own rectitude.

He swung along beside me, answering questions with

dogged brevity. Clearly, here was a man who had reduced

human intercourse to a basis of necessity. I was

to be shut up with him for a year, and he was not likely

to prove a cheerful jailer. My feet struck upon a graveled

highway at the end of the village street, and I

heard suddenly the lapping of water.

"It's the lake, sir. This road leads right out to the

house," Bates explained.

I was doomed to meditate pretty steadily, I imagined,

on the beauty of the landscape in these parts, and I

was rejoiced to know that it was not all cheerless prairie

or gloomy woodland. The wind freshened cud blew

sharply upon us off the water.




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