And through the opposite door shone the last year's ricks of corn, golden in the sun.
Now, although a farm-yard is not, either in Scotland or elsewhere, the liveliest of places in ordinary, and still less about noon in summer, yet there was a peculiar cause rendering this one, at this moment, exceptionally deserted and dreary.

But there were, notwithstanding, a great many more people about the place than was usual, only they were all gathered together in the ben-end, or best room of the house--a room of tolerable size, with a clean boarded floor, a mahogany table, black with age, and chairs of like material, whose wooden seats, and high, straight backs, were more suggestive of state than repose.

Every one of these chairs was occupied by a silent man, whose gaze was either fixed on the floor, or lost in the voids of space.

Each wore a black coat, and most of them were in black throughout.

Their hard, thick, brown hands--hands evidently unused to idleness--grasped their knees, or, folded in each other, rested upon them.