In which the stirring arrival of a mysterious gentleman at the Brass Castle kindles the curiosity and idle speculations of the village folk, while the somber young Mervyn receives a singular visitor whose good-natured discourse reveals much of the pallid tenant’s unsettled mind and destitute circumstances. Meanwhile, an uneasy nobleman regards Mervyn and his dilapidated abode with suspicion and ill-concealed disdain, perceiving in him an unwelcome anomaly amid the shifting fortunes of the locality.