were of moulded brick, mullions and drip stone, and the roof was of tile. How the name of Red Hall came to be given it, was obvious at a glance.
Round the house was a yard paved with brick, and a moat filled with rushes and weed. There were a few low outhouses, stable, cowsheds, bakehouse, forming a yard at the back, and into that descended the stair from the kitchen-door over a flying arch, like that in front.
Perhaps the principal impression produced by the aspect of Red Hall on the visitor was its solitariness. The horizon was bounded by sea-wall; only when the door was reached, which was on a level with the top of the mound, were the glittering expanse of sea, the creeks, and the woods on Mersea Island and the mainland visible. Mehalah and her mother had never been at Red Hall before, and though they were pretty familiar with the loneliness of the marshes, the utter isolation of this tall gaunt house impressed them. The thorntrees at the Ray gave their farm an aspect of snugness compared with this. From the Ray, village-church towers and cultivated acres were visible, but so long as they were in the pasture near the Hall, nothing was to be seen save a flat tract of grass land intersected with lines of bulrush, and bounded by a mound.
Several cows and horses were in the pasture, but no human being was visible. Mehalah and her mother hesitated before ascending the stair.
"This is the queerest place for a Christian to live in I ever saw," said the widow. "Look there, Mehalah, there is a date on the door, sixteen hundred and thirty-six. Go up and knock."
"Do you see that little window in the sea face of the house, mother?"
"Yes. There is none but it."
"I can tell you what that is for. It is to signal from with a light."
"I don't doubt it. Go on."
Mehalah slowly ascended the stair; it was without a balustrade. She struck against the door. The door was of strong plank thickly covered with nails, and the date of which the widow had spoken was made with nail-heads at the top.
