Ravensdene Court

In the hope that you will be
     able to come to me at an early date,

                     "I am, dear sir,

                            "Yours truly,

                                  "FRANCIS RAVEN.

  "Leonard Middlebrook, ESQ.,

    "35M, Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, W. C."

Several matters referred to in this letter inclined me towards going
to Ravensdene Court--the old family mansion--the thousands of ancient
volumes--the prospect of unearthing something of real note--the
chance of examining a collector's harvest--and perhaps more than
anything, the genuinely courteous and polite tone of my invitation. I
was not particularly busy at that time, nor had I been out of London
for more than a few days now and then for several years: a change to
the far-different North had its attractions. And after a brief
correspondence with him, I arranged to go down to Mr. Raven early in
March, and remain under his roof until I had completed the task which
he desired me to undertake. As I have said already, I left London on
the 8th of March, journeying to Newcastle by the afternoon express
from King's Cross. I spent that night at Newcastle and went forward
next morning to Alnmouth, which according to a map with which I had
provided myself, was the nearest station to Ravensdene Court. And soon
after arriving at Alnmouth the first chapter of my adventures opened,
and came about by sheer luck. It was a particularly fine, bright,
sharply-bracing morning, and as I was under no particular obligation
to present myself at Ravensdene Court at any fixed time, I determined
to walk thither by way of the coast. The distance, according to my
map, was about nine or ten miles. Accordingly, sending on my luggage
by a conveyance, with a message to Mr. Raven that I should arrive
during the afternoon, I made through the village of Lesbury toward the
sea, and before long came in sight of it ... a glorious stretch of
blue, smooth that day as an island lake and shining like polished
steel in the light of the sun. There was not a sail in sight, north
or south or due east, nor a wisp of trailing smoke from any passing
steamer: I got an impression of silent, unbroken immensity which
seemed a fitting prelude to the solitudes into which my mission had
brought me.

I was at that time just thirty years of age, and though I had been
closely kept to London of late years, my youth had been spent in
lonely places, and I had an innate love of solitudes and wide spaces.
I saw at once that I should fall in love with this Northumbrian coast,
and once on its headlands I took my time, sauntering along at my
leisure: Mr. Raven, in one of his letters, had mentioned seven as his
dinner hour: therefore, I had the whole day before me. By noon the sun
had grown warm, even summer-like; warm enough, at any rate, to warrant
me in sitting down on a ledge of the cliffs while I smoked a pipe of
tobacco and stared lazily at the mighty stretch of water across which,
once upon a time, the vikings had swarmed from Norway. I must have
become absorbed in my meditations--certainly it was with a start of
surprise that I suddenly realized that somebody was near me, and
looked up to see, standing close by and eyeing me furtively, a man.

It was, perhaps, the utter loneliness of my immediate surroundings
just then that made me wonder to see any living thing so near. At that
point there was neither a sail on the sea, nor a human habitation on
the land; there was not even a sheep cropping the herbage of the
headlands. I think there were birds calling about the pinnacles of the
cliffs--yet it seemed to me that the man broke a complete stillness
when he spoke, as he quietly wished me a good morning.

The sound of his voice startled me; also, it brought me out of a
reverie and sharpened my wits, and as I replied to him, I took him in
from head to foot. A thick-set middle-aged man, tidily dressed in a
blue serge suit of nautical cut, the sort of thing that they sell,
ready-made, in sea-ports and naval stations. His clothes went with his
dark skin and grizzled hair and beard, and with the gold rings which
he wore in his ears. And there was that about him which suggested that
he was for that time an idler, lounging.

"A fine morning," I remarked, not at all averse to entering into
conversation, and already somewhat curious about him.

"A fine morning it is, master, and good weather, and likely to keep
so," he answered, glancing around at sea and sky. Then he looked
significantly at my knickerbockers and at a small satchel which I
carried over my shoulders. "The right sort o' weather," he added, "for
gentlemen walking about the country--pleasuring."

"You know these parts," I suggested.

"No!" he said, with a decisive shake of his head. "I don't, master,
and that's a fact. I'm from the south, I am--never been up this way
before, and, queerly enough, for I've seen most of the world in my
time, never sailed this here sea as lies before us.