At one side of him were some vineyards and cottage gardens; at the other was a solitary house, the outermost of all the abodes in his immediate vicinity.

Dark and cheerless as it was, he regarded it for some time with the mechanical attention of a man more occupied in thought than observation,--gradually advancing towards it in the moody abstraction of his reflections, until he unconsciously paused before the low range of irregular steps which led to its entrance door.
Startled from its meditations by his sudden propinquity to the object that he had unwittingly approached, he now, for the first time, examined the lonely abode before him with real attention.
There was nothing remarkable about the house, save the extreme desolateness of its appearance, which seemed to arise partly from its isolated position, and partly from the unusual absence of all decoration on its external front.

It was too extensive to have been the dwelling of a poor man, too void of pomp and ornament to have been a mansion of the rich.

It might, perhaps, have belonged to some citizen, or foreigner, or the middle class--some moody Northman, some solitary Egyptian, some scheming Jew.

Yet, though it was not possessed, in itself, of any remarkable or decided character, the Goth experienced a mysterious, almost an eager curiosity to examine its interior.