I, as usual, had
nothing to do. My hands always were, and always will be, as
awkward as a man's. The Count good-humouredly took a stool many
sizes too small for him, and balanced himself on it with his back
against the side of the shed, which creaked and groaned under his
weight. He put the pagoda-cage on his lap, and let out the mice
to crawl over him as usual. They are pretty, innocent-looking
little creatures, but the sight of them creeping about a man's
body is for some reason not pleasant to me. It excites a strange
responsive creeping in my own nerves, and suggests hideous ideas
of men dying in prison with the crawling creatures of the dungeon
preying on them undisturbed.
The morning was windy and cloudy, and the rapid alternations of
shadow and sunlight over the waste of the lake made the view look
doubly wild, weird, and gloomy.
"Some people call that picturesque," said Sir Percival, pointing
over the wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. "I
call it a blot on a gentleman's property. In my great-
grandfather's time the lake flowed to this place. Look at it now!
It is not four feet deep anywhere, and it is all puddles and
pools. I wish I could afford to drain it, and plant it all over.
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