Kit's Cottage stood plain to see at a short distance from the water, but Kit's House lay to the right, behind its screen of laurels and elms.

A narrow flight of steps and a path along the cliff's edge brought the visitors to the front door.
It was a long, low house, with pointed windows on the upper storey, and a deep verandah shading the ground-floor rooms.

It faced the south, and although few flowers were out, the ruined garden was luxuriant with decay.

One could see where the old Lazar-house had been overlaid with the taste of more recent inhabitants, but, as Caleb said, no one had lived here now for a dozen years or more.
The walls were smeared with green vegetation; the iron gate creaked heavily with rust.

On the roof the stonecrop flourished, and the swallows had built their nests about the chimneys.
Indoors it was as bad.