He was now walking up and down this spacious17 old room, which, extending round an angle at the far end, was very dark in that quarter. It was his wont18 to walk up and down thus, without speaking — an exercise which used to remind me of Chateaubriand’s father in the great chamber20 of the Chateau19 de Combourg. At the far end he nearly disappeared in the gloom, and then returning emerged for a few minutes, like a portrait with a background of shadow, and then again in silence faded nearly out of view.

 

This monotony and silence would have been terrifying to a person less accustomed to it than I. As it was, it had its effect. I have known my father a whole day without ounce speaking to me. Though I loved him very much, I was also much in awe21 of him.

 

While my father paced the floor, my thoughts were employed about the events of a month before. So few things happened at Knowl out of the accustomed routine, that a very trifling22 occurrence was enough to set people wondering and conjecturing23 in that serene24 household. My father lived in remarkable25 seclusion26; except for a ride, he hardly ever left the grounds of Knowl; and I don’t think it happened twice in the year that a visitor sojourned among us.

 

There was not even that mild religious bustle27 which sometimes besets28 the wealthy and moral recluse29. My father had left the Church of England for some odd sect30, I forget its name, and ultimately became, I was told, a Swedenborgian. But he did not care to trouble me upon the subject. So the old carriage brought my governess, when I had one, the old housekeeper31, Mrs. Rusk, and myself to the parish church every Sunday. And my father, in the view of the honest rector who shook his head over him —“a cloud without water, carried about of winds, and a wandering star to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness”— corresponded with the “minister” of his church, and was provokingly contented32 with his own fertility and illumination; and Mrs. Rusk, who was a sound and bitter churchwoman, said he fancied he saw visions and talked with angels like the rest of that “rubbitch.”

 

I don’t know that she had any better foundation than analogy and conjecture33 for charging my father with supernatural pretensions34; and in all points when her orthodoxy was not concerned, she loved her master and was a loyal housekeeper.

 

 

 

 

I found her one morning superintending preparations for the reception of a visitor, in the hunting-room it was called, from the pieces of tapestry35 that covered its walls, representing scenes à la Wouvermans, of falconry, and the chase, dogs, hawks36, ladies, gallants, and pages. In the midst of whom Mrs. Rusk, in black silk, was rummaging37 drawers, counting linen38, and issuing orders.