The Guardian of High Elms Farm by J.S. Fletcher

In the cold dreariness of that February morning the whole glace looked chilly and repellent in the extreme. There, on a little knoll, which by comparison assumed almost hill-like proportions amongst the low level of the meadows and corn-lands at its feet, stood the farmstead -- a rambling mass of rough grey walls and red roofs; house, barns, stables, granary, and byres occurring here and there without evident plan or arrangement. Two or three great elm-trees, now leafless, and black with winter moisture, rose high above the chimneys and gables like sentinels inclined to sleep at their posts; above their topmost branches half-a-score of rooks flapped lazy wings against the dull grey of the sky; their occasional disconsolate notes added to the melancholy of the scene. And yet to an experienced eye, versed in the craft of the land, there was everything to promise well in the outward aspect of High Elms Farm. The house, if very old, was in good repair, and so were the buildings; the land was of excellent quality. But it only needed one glance to see that the house had not been tenanted for some time; its windows gave an instant impression that neither lamp-light nor fire-light had gleamed through them of late, and to enter the great stone-paved kitchen was to experience the feeling of stepping into a vault. That feeling of dead emptiness was in all the outbuildings, too -- the stables, the granary, the byres were lifeless, void; ghostliness of a strange sort seemed to abide in their silence. And beneath the curling mists which lay over the good acres of corn-land, weeds were flourishing instead of growing crops.

On that February morning two young men, so much alike that no one could mistake them for anything else than what they were -- twin-brothers -- stood at the stone porch of the house, staring at each other with mutually questioning eyes. They were tall, finely built, sturdy fellows of apparently twenty-six years of age, fair of hair, blue of eye, ruddy of cheek, with square, resolute jaws and an air of determination which promised well for their success in life. Closely alike in their looks, they carried their similarity to their dress. Each wore a shooting-coat of somewhat loud pattern; each sported a fancy waistcoat with gilt buttons; each wore natty riding-breeches of whipcord, which terminated in Newmarket gaiters of light fawn colour. Each wore his billycock hat inclined a little to the left side; each had a bit of partridge's feather stuck in his hatband. And at this moment each was nibbling at a straw.