A Minion of the Moon: A Romance of the King's Highway

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(the New York Public Library)

Minion of the moon:
A romance of the king's highway."
Thomas Wilkinson Speight

"Good people, your money or your lives!" he said.

A MINION OF THE MOON

BY

T. W. SPEIGHT

AUTHOR OF
"THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE," "HOODWINKED," "
BY DEVIOUS WAYS," "THE HEART OF A MYSTERY," ETC.

NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY
156 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK MDCCCXCVII

Copyright, 1896,
BY
NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY

A MINION OF THE MOON.

THE PROLOGUE.

[CHAPTER I.]

"WE FLY BY NIGHT."

When the nineteenth century was still a puling infant scarcely able to stand alone, and not yet knowing what to make of the strange hurly-burly into which it found itself born, Abel Ringwood and Sarah his wife were respectively landlord and landlady of the King's Arms, a noted commercial hotel and posting-house at Appleford, a town in the North of England, on one of the great coach roads from the south to Scotland. All His Majesty's mails, which travelled by that route, stopped to change horses at the King's Arms, and, as there was a great deal of private posting by noblemen and rich commoners in those days, the hotel stables had seldom fewer than from twenty to thirty horses in them at one time.

In view of the fact that Appleford--was and is--on the high-road from the south to Gretna Green, it was hardly to be wondered at that a week seldom passed without one or more runaway couples stopping to change horses at the King's Arms, and then hurrying on again, helter-skelter, as hard as they could go. Thus there was nothing out of the common when, about six o'clock on a certain December evening, a post-chaise dashed up to the hotel door containing a runaway couple and a lady's maid.

The gentleman, although he seemed in a desperate hurry to get on, induced the young lady to alight in order to relieve her cramped limbs while fresh horses were being put into the chaise, and the lamps freshly trimmed. She declined all refreshment, but he partook of a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while a glass of steaming negus was handed to the maid inside. The young lady, who was dressed from head to foot in expensive furs, was exceedingly pretty, with large, pathetic-looking eyes, and a wistful smile. The gentleman was enveloped in a long military cloak, and was evidently connected with the army. In three minutes and a half they were on the road again. Everybody there, down to the stable-boy, wished them God-speed and a happy ending to their adventure. The evening was clear and frosty; there had been a slight fall of snow in the afternoon, which still lay crisp and white on the hard roads; the moon would rise in less than an hour.

No long time passed before it was known throughout the hotel who the runaways were. The post-boy whispered the news to John Ostler, who, a few minutes later, told it to his mistress. The lady was Miss Dulcie Peyton, the niece and ward of Sir Peter Warrendale, of Scrope Hall, near Whatton Regis. The gentleman was a Captain Pascoe, the heir of an old but impoverished family.

According to report, Sir Peter had set his heart on his niece's marrying some one who was utterly distasteful to her, and, with more anger than politeness, had shown Captain Pascoe the door when that gentleman had called upon him to ask permission to pay his addresses to Miss Dulcie. It was further reported that for the last three months or more the poor young lady had been virtually a prisoner, never on any pretence being allowed outside the precincts of the park; and that Sir Peter vowed a prisoner she should remain till the last hour of his guardianship had struck, which would not be for three long years to come. But "bolts and bars cannot keep love out," nor in either, for that matter. The pretty bird had escaped from its cage, and everybody devoutly hoped that it would not be recaptured.

The runagates had not been gone more than forty minutes when up dashed another post-chaise, out of which bounced a very irascible-looking, red-faced, middle-aged gentleman, presumably Sir Peter Warrendale, who, with much spluttering and several expletives, ordered fresh horses to be instantly put into the chaise, and then, perceiving comely Mrs. Ringwood where she sat among the glasses and bottles in her little snuggery, he strode up to her, and in his arrogant way demanded to know whether she had seen anything of a runaway couple, who, so he was credibly informed, had passed through Appleford a little while before on their way to Gretna Green.

Now, the conscience of the worthy landlady was of that tender kind that it would not allow her to tell a lie, but, in order to give the fugitives a few minutes more start, she asked him to describe the two persons to whom he referred. This he did in very few words, and nothing was then left Mrs. Ringwood but to confess that she had seen the young people in question, and that they had changed horses there about an hour before.

On hearing this, the red-faced gentleman indulged in more bad language, ordered a glass of hot brandy-and-water, which half choked him in his hurry to swallow it, and then, still growling savagely in his throat, was shut up next minute in his chaise, and driven rapidly away. One small service Mrs. Ringwood had been able to do the runaways. She had secretly told John Ostler to let them have the two best horses in the stables, and the latter, of his own accord, had supplied the red-faced gentleman with the two worst. Unless something unforeseen should happen, there was not much likelihood of the fugitives being overtaken.

Everything was going well with them, they had left Appleford about a dozen miles behind, and had pretty well got over the worst part of the fells, when one of the horses fell lame, and it quickly became apparent that the poor animal was unable to go at any pace faster than a walk, and that only with difficulty. What was to be done?

The next place where they could hope to obtain fresh horses was five or six miles ahead, and it was almost a certainty that before they could get so far they would be overtaken by Sir Peter, who, they had not the slightest doubt, was in close pursuit of them. The quick-witted post-boy suggested that they should tie the lame horse to a tree by the roadside, leaving it to be fetched later on, and press forward as fast as possible with the remaining horse; but, even so, the chances were that the irate Sir Peter would overtake them before another hour had gone by. It was a desperate chance, but no other was left them.

The post-boy had just tied up the lame horse, and was on the point of mounting the other, when, not more than a dozen yards from the chaise, and as if he had sprung that moment out of the ground, a masked horseman leaped the rough wall that divided the high-road from the fells. "Stand, or you are a dead man!" he exclaimed in commanding tones, as he presented a pistol at the postboys head. Then, turning to the chaise window, which was open, and at the same moment flashing a bull's-eye lantern on the travellers: "Good people your money or your lives!" he said. The maid gave utterance to a scream; but the young lady only clung in terrified silence to her lover's arm.

A network of filmy clouds covered the sky; but the moon, which had now risen, gave enough light to enable the postilion to see that the highwayman was mounted on a powerful black horse with a white stocking on its near fore-leg, and a white star on its forehead; that he wore a bell-shaped beaver hat; that his mask just reached to the tip of his nose, and that his outer garment was a dark horseman's cloak with several capes to it.

"I durst wager a thousand pounds to a farden it's Captain Nightshade," he muttered under his breath.

"Sir," said the young captain, bending forward so that his face was in a line with the open window, speaking with much dignity and a ceremonious politeness more common in those days than now, "here is my watch, together with that of this lady, and here are our purses; but if the feelings of a gentleman are still cherished by you--and by your accent I judge you to be one--and if the sentiments of our common humanity have still power to appeal to your heart, I beg and entreat that you do not leave us wholly destitute of the means wherewith to prosecute our journey. I and this lady are on our way to Gretna Green. She has escaped from the custody of a most tyrannical uncle, who is also her guardian, and who would fain force her into marriage with a man whom she detests. That he is in pursuit of us, and no great distance behind, we have every reason to believe. Now, sir, should you be sufficiently hard-hearted to deprive us of the whole of our funds, even should we by some miracle be enabled to reach the end of our journey, the needful gold would still be lacking wherewith to forge that link of Hymen which would give me a husband's right to protect this dear girl from all the tyrannical uncles in existence."

The highwayman had listened attentively. The reins lay on his horse's neck; his left hand held the lantern, the light from which shone full into the body of the chaise; his right grasped a pistol the barrel of which gleamed coldly in the moonlight.

"Sir, not another word, I entreat," he said when the captain had done speaking, bowing low and withdrawing the light of his lantern at the same moment. "Never shall it be said of me that I took toll of lovers in distress. Rather would I do all that in me lies to aid them as far as my poor powers might avail."

"Sir, I thank you most heartily," answered the captain with as much high-breeding as though he were addressing a duke.

"One of your horses has fallen lame, is it not so?" demanded the robber.

"Alas! yes; and the chances are a score to one that we shall be overtaken by Sir Peter before we can reach any place where we can obtain fresh ones."

The highwayman, who had put back his pistol into its holster, refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff from a box, the jewels in which flashed in the moonbeams, before he spoke. Then he said:--

"In that case, sir, it seems to me there is only one thing left you to do."

"And that is----?" queried the captain eagerly.

"For you and the young lady to make use of my mare to speed you on your journey. Leila will carry the pair of you to Gretna, and be as fresh as a daisy at the end of it. And as for Sir Peter overtaking you----" His scornful laugh rang clear through the frosty night.

Captain Pascoe might be excused if he fairly gasped for breath as he listened to this extraordinary proposition, but it was far too good an offer to be lightly refused. As a matter of politeness he made some slight demur, which the highwayman promptly overruled, and three minutes later he was astride the black mare. Then the highwayman, taking the young lady round the waist, swung her lightly on to the crupper.

"But what is to become of you?" queried the captain.

"Never fear for me, sir," replied the other. "I shall know how to take care of myself."

Then in a low voice he gave the captain certain instructions where to leave the mare, which he would send a trusty man to reclaim on the morrow.

Then the captain held out his hand, which the other frankly grasped. "It is the hand of one," he said, "who, under different circumstances, would doubtless have been a different man."

Then the two men lifted their hats, the lady waved her hand, and half a minute later black Leila and her double burden had disappeared round a turn of the road.

[CHAPTER II.]

ON THE KING'S HIGHWAY.

The amazed post-boy was now directed to put the lame horse back into its place and go slowly ahead, while the highwayman himself took the captain's place inside the chaise.

"Don't you be frightened, my dear," he said to the trembling waiting-woman, whom her young mistress had done her best to reassure before leaving her. "I love your sex far too dearly ever to harm one of you. With your leave I will ride part of the way with you, and should anybody ask my name, you may call me Mr. Darke."

He removed his mask as he spoke; but it was too dark inside the chaise to allow of his features being distinguished, even if the waiting-woman had not been too terrified to do more than glance furtively at him.

They had gone on slowly for about a quarter of an hour when it became evident that some other vehicle was approaching them rapidly from the rear.

"Keep your veil down and don't say a word," said Mr. Darke to his companion after a backward glance through the open window.

He drew his hat down over his brows and turned up the collar of his redingote about his ears, so that even had it been daylight little of his face would have been visible. It was not unlikely that the Sir Peter of whom mention had been made might do the same as he had done--throw the light of a lantern on the inmates of the chaise.

Presently the pursuing chaise came up at a great pace, the post-boy lashing his horses freely, and, passing the other one, drew up suddenly some dozen yards ahead, straight across the narrow road, so as effectually to bar its progress and bring it to a stand.

Mr. Darke put his head out of the window. "Post-boy, what is the meaning of this stoppage?" he called. "Why don't you go on?"

"Can't do it, sir--road blocked by t'other shay."

Before more could be said, Sir Peter himself came stalking up trembling with rage, followed by his servant with a lantern.

"So, so! sir, your nefarious scheme has not succeeded; your villainous plot has miscarried, as it deserved to do," he stuttered, his words tumbling headlong over each other in his passion. "I'll have the law of you, sir, for this! You shall be taught that you cannot run off with a gentleman's ward with impunity! You shall be cast for damages, sir. Five thousand pounds--not one farthing less--damme!--But where is that niece of mine--the shameless hussy? I will----"

"May I ask, sir, the meaning of this singular outrage?" demanded a grave, stern voice from the interior of the chaise. "If His Majesty's liege subjects are to be stopped on the highway by every inebriate brawler, it is indeed time for the hand of authority to intervene. I am myself in the Commission of Peace, and I must demand from you your name and address, sir, in order that further inquiry may be made into this most discreditable proceeding."

But by this time the servant had directed the rays of his lantern into the interior of the chaise. Sir Peter stood like a man petrified. In the farther corner sat a plainly-dressed, thin, angular woman, bolt upright, and as rigid as a ramrod, who, although her face was hidden by a thick veil, no one in his senses would for a moment mistake for Miss Dulcie Peyton, and it was doubtless owing to the veil that he failed to recognize in her that young lady's maid, with whose features he was presumably not unfamiliar. Of the person who had addressed him little could be seen save a large aquiline nose and a pair of fierce black eyes. It was equally impossible, however, to confound him with Captain Pascoe.

"I crave your pardon, sir," said Sir Peter, in a tone of almost abject apology, as he took off his hat and made a ceremonious bow. "I shall never forgive myself for my stupid blunder; but the fact is I mistook your chaise for the one in which a niece of mine--confound her!--is at the present moment on her way to Gretna Green. We had tidings of her at the place where we last changed horses, and I made sure that the first chaise we should overtake must be the one of which we were in pursuit."

"Sir, your apology makes ample amends," responded Mr. Darke in the most gracious of tones. "Your mistake was a most natural one. No doubt the flight of your niece has been a source of much annoyance to you."

The scowl on Sir Peter's face was not pleasant to see.

"If once I clap hands on her, she won't escape me again. Bolts and bars and bread-and-water--that's the only treatment for refractory wenches. But pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Sir Peter Warrendale, of Scrope Hall, near Whatton Regis."

"And I, Colonel Delnay, of Scowthwaite, by Carlisle." At this point the two gentlemen bowed ceremoniously to each other. "I trust, Sir Peter, to have the pleasure of meeting you on some more auspicious occasion."

"With all my heart, Colonel, I reciprocate the wish. But, ouns-an-codlins! I'm forgetting all about my runaway niece. May I ask whether anything has passed you on the road at all resembling a fly-by-night couple in a post-chaise?"

"Nothing resembling what you speak of, Sir Peter, I give you my word. Most likely they have a post-boy with them who is acquainted with the short cut across the fells. It's a dangerous road for a chaise to traverse after dark, and the chances are that they will come to grief before they reach the end of it."

"I'd give a hundred guineas, damme if I wouldn't, if one of their linch-pins was to drop out! But I may yet be in time to overtake 'em."

And so, with a few more polite phrases on both sides, the two men parted.

No sooner had the other chaise started on its way than Mr. Darke lay back in his seat and gave vent to a burst of hearty laughter. Then, in a full rich voice, he sang as under:--

You may ride through the night, nor draw rein all the day,
Change horse as you list, and--tantivy! away!
But from Humber to Ribble, 'twixt Derwent and Dee,
You'll ne'er find a trace of sweet Ellen O'Lee!

"Poor uncle! Poor Sir Peter!" he exclaimed. "His pretty niece will have been wed a couple of hours ere he crosses the Border. What a surly old curmudgeon he looks! No wonder his little bird was tired of its cage, and seized the first chance to flutter its wings and away."

When they had gone about a mile further, he called to the post-boy to stop, and alighted from the chaise. Dipping his hand into one of his capacious pockets, he drew out something which he presented with a bow to the maid. "Here's a trifle for you, my dear, to keep you in mind of Mr. Darke," he said. "And now I must wish you good-night and bon voyage, with the hope that one of these days you will be run away with by as gallant a gentleman as he who has carried off your mistress."

With that he took off his hat and swept her a low bow with all the grace imaginable. Then, stepping up to the post-boy, he put a couple of guineas into his hand, "just to drink my health with," as he said.

Half-a-minute later he was lost to view in a plantation of young trees which at that point lined one side of the road. The present he had given the maid proved to be a chased-silver sweetmeat box of elaborate workmanship, which had doubtless at one time been the property of some person of quality.

Some six weeks later than the events just recorded, Mrs. Ringwood, the landlady of the King's Arms, was drinking a dish of tea with her friend, Miss Capp, who had been from home for a couple of months, and was agog to hear all the news.

"The young people had been three hours married by the time Sir Peter reached Gretna Green," said the landlady, in continuation of what had gone before. "He stormed and raved, as a matter of course, and vowed he would have the law of Captain Pascoe; but it was well known that he would never have dared to go into court and let the world know with how much cruelty he had treated his orphan niece. When the captain and his bride came south a week later they stopped and dined at the King's Arms, and it was then I learned all the particulars I have just told you of their strange adventure."

"But what about Mr. Darke? What about the highwayman?" queried Miss Capp eagerly.

"I can tell you very little about him. As to who he really was, nothing has ever come out. He may have been the notorious Captain Nightshade, as the post-boy firmly believes, or he may not. The post-boy says he recognized him by the horse he was riding--a black mare, with a white stocking on the near fore-leg and a white blaze on the forehead. In any case, the act was that of one who had not forgotten that once on a time he was a gentleman."

"It was the act of one who, whatever his other faults may be, has not yet forfeited all right to that title," responded the enthusiastic spinster, who envied Miss Peyton's maid her adventure.

"By the way, I mustn't forget to tell you that poor Sir Peter was unlucky enough to be stopped on his way back from Gretna Green, and eased of his watch and purse, together with his snuff-box, which latter it seems he set great store by, it being a sort of family heirloom. And I have it from the post-boy in charge of the chaise that as the highwayman was on the point of riding away he lifted his hat and said: 'Colonel Delnay has the honor, Sir Peter, to wish you a very good-night.'"

THE NARRATIVE.

[CHAPTER I.]

A PRENTICE HAND.

Among other wayfarers who, on a certain evening some four months subsequently to the events already narrated, halted at the King's Arms Hotel, Appleford, in order to refresh the inner man, was a stranger on horseback, with a rather bulky saddle-bag strapped behind him, who, judging from his style and appearance, might have been a cattle jobber on his way to some fair, or farm bailiff, a "statesman" who farmed his own acres, and had a comfortable little balance at the local bank; or, at any rate, a man used to a healthy, outdoor country life, to whom existence in a town would have been nothing less than intolerable.

Having dismounted from his very serviceable nag, he gave it into the ostler's charge, with strict injunctions that it was to be well cared for, and then made for the coffee-room, where, five minutes later, he was seated with a noble cold sirloin before him, and at his elbow a tankard of the best old ale the house could supply.

He was a prime trencherman, was John Dyce--they were common enough in those days--and it would have made a modern dyspeptic stare to watch the heroic way in which he attacked the sirloin, and with what unequivocal appetite one well-mustarded slice after another, with its accompaniment of delicious home-made bread, was disposed of. But not even John could go on eating forever, and by and by he laid down his knife and fork with an audible sigh, which might be partly due to the satisfaction which comes--or should come--of comfortable repletion, and partly a sigh of regret at having to bid farewell to the sirloin. While the waiter cleared away he went as far as the stable in order to satisfy himself that his nag was being properly looked after. He was gone some little time, and when he came back he ordered a churchwarden pipe, a screw of tobacco, and a tumbler of cold punch to be brought him.

There were some half-dozen people in the room who had been there when he arrived, and a number of others had come and gone in the interim. Now and then a bell would be heard to ring somewhere indoors, now and then a chaise or other vehicle would rattle up to the door and come to an abrupt stand. The Highflyer coach, going south, had stopped for exactly three minutes and a half in order to change horses, during which time a majority of the passengers had crowded into the hotel, clamoring for drinks of various kinds.

John Dyce, sitting apart in a quiet corner of the long, oak-panelled, low-ceilinged room, and puffing meditatively at his churchwarden, had a quietly observant eye for every fresh face that came in. At length--but not till his glance had travelled more than once, with some anxiety in it, to the clock over the chimney-piece--his waiting was rewarded.

The coffee-room door opened, and there entered a little, comfortable-looking, rosy-gilled man, in whose features professional gravity seemed to be struggling against a latent sense of humor. He was Mr. Tew, managing clerk to Mr. Piljoy, solicitor of Arkrigg, a town at the other end of the county. His employer being laid up with gout, he had been sent to Stanbrook in his stead in order to get Squire Cortelyon's will duly signed and witnessed. Having accomplished his errand, he was now on his way back home, with the will carefully buttoned up inside his breast pocket. Squire Cortelyon was not expected to live from hour to hour.

"Bottle-green surtout with black velvet collar," muttered John Dyce to himself. "Front tooth broken short off; red and black silk muffler round his throat; white beaver hat the worse for wear. It must be him."

Mr. Tew beckoned the waiter.

"Ham and eggs and a cup of strong coffee; and let me have them as quick as possible. I must be on the road again in half an hour."

"'Am-an'-eggs--yessir--have 'em in a jiffy. Going far, sir, to-night, may I ask?"

"Only as far as Arkrigg."

"A dozen long miles, sir, and as nasty a bit o' road as any in the county, being nearly all up-hill and windin' in an' out among the moors--let alone its bein' such a favorite road with Captain Nightshade." Then, insinuatingly: "Better stay where you are, sir. Could put you up very comfortable. His Grace of Malvern stayed with us a night last month, and before goin' away he says, says he----"

"No, no," broke in Mr. Tew good-naturedly--waiters in our great-grandfathers' days were often privileged mortals--"it's not a bit of use your trying to tempt me. Home to-night I must get--highly important; and as for Captain Nightshade, he flies at higher game than the likes of me. If he were to strip me to the shirt, all I have would hardly fetch him the price of a decent dinner and a bottle of wine. So now for my ham and eggs."

Not a word of all this had escaped John Dyce, but his stolid face was absolutely devoid of expression. He had changed his position to the settle near the chimney-corner, and was sitting with one hand buried deep in his breeches pocket, while the other held his long pipe, his gaze meanwhile being contemplatively fixed on a corner of the well-smoked ceiling.

He had already paid his "shot," and he now put down his pipe, stood up, yawned, stretched himself, and then, after clapping his hat on his head, strode slowly out of the room. Passing the bar, now empty of customers, through the inner window of which he could see the plump landlady busy with her knitting-needles, he paused for a few moments at the top of the flight of broad shallow steps which led up to the front door. Like so many similar establishments in those days, the King's Arms Hotel formed three sides of a quadrangle, with the windows facing into it, the fourth side consisting of an open gateway large enough for a coach-and-four to be driven through with ease, having shops on either side, the windows of which fronted on the main street.

As John Dyce stood on the topmost step he looked to right and he looked to left. For a small provincial town the hour was growing late. In the inn yard no one was about. A light shone dimly through the stable window, and in one corner Mr. Tew's chaise, with two or three other vehicles, made a confused heap, dimly discernible. Half an hour later, with the arrival of the Comet, bound for Edinburgh, the whole place would wake up, as at the stroke of an enchanter's wand, to a brief spasm of feverish energy and excitement. Meanwhile somnolence reigned.

John Dyce, whistling under his breath, descended the steps and picked his way slowly in the direction of the stable, presumably in search of the ostler; but it was not till a full quarter of an hour later that he rode out of the inn yard, and, having crossed the market-place, took the road which led due north out of the town. The clock of the old church chimed the half-hour past ten as he left it behind. A crescent moon was sailing in a clear sky.

Presently John's nag broke into a gentle trot, and so the two jogged quietly along till the last house in Appleford had been left some four miles behind. Then, at a point where the road, dipping a little, cut through the dark heart of a plantation of firs, he drew rein and let his horse subside into a walk. He had got about half-way through the plantation when, a little way ahead of him, what looked like an irregular fragment of the blackness which walled him in on either hand broke itself away, as it were, and, moving out into the middle of the road, showed there clear and distinct by the light of the young moon, and then, as he drew a pace or two nearer, took on itself the shape of another horse and another rider.

John seemed in nowise alarmed by the sudden apparition, but rather, indeed, as if the rencontre was not unexpected by him.

"So! it is you; I was rather doubtful at first," said the other in a full rich voice as he drew near. "Well, what luck have you had?"

As well as could be seen, the speaker was a young and very handsome man, with an unmistakable air of distinction. His outer garment was a long, loose, dark blue cloak without sleeves, fastened at the throat by a silver clasp, which hid the rest of his attire except his long riding boots and his small three-cornered hat. His dark hair, the real color of which could not be distinguished by that light, was slightly sprinkled with powder and tied up behind with black ribbon into the form of an ample queue. His hands were covered by a pair of buff gauntlets, and from the holsters in front of him the stocks of a brace of pistols bulged menacingly.

John Dyce carried a finger to his forehead as his nag came to halt. "Everything gone off all right, your honor," he said in reply to the young man's question. "I left Mr. Tew at the King's Arms in Appleford. He'd just ordered his supper, but seemed in a hurry to get on, and I should say that by this time he's nearly ready to start again, so that your honor's wait for him shouldn't be a long one. Before coming away I managed, unseen by anybody, to draw the charges of his pistols, which he had left behind him in the chaise when he went in to supper."

"Well done, John! There's far more in that head of years than most people give you credit for. But now you must leave me. I will await Mr. Tew here. I don't think I could find a more convenient bit of road for my purpose than this. You will wait for me, as arranged, at the first toll-bar on the Whinbarrow road."

"Better not send me away, your honor," said John in a tone of earnest entreaty; "better let me keep with you, or, at least, be within hail in case of accident."

"No, no, John, I won't have you mixed up in the affair more than is absolutely necessary. There's nothing to fear--more especially now that you have drawn the charges of the pistols. But, at the best of times, I don't believe Mr. Tew has an ounce of courage in that plump, well-lined body of his. More likely than not he will take me for Captain Nightshade, and be all a-quake with fright. So you must just do as you are bidden, and make the best of your way to the place agreed upon. And remember, I forbid you on any account to wait about here."

John attempted no further protest, knowing, probably, how futile it would have been, but wheeling his nag round, without a word more started off down the road at a gentle trot.

The young man waited without stirring till the last thud of his horse's hoofs had died into silence. Then he shivered--the night was bitter enough to excuse his doing so--and drew his cloak more closely around him; and then he glanced about him, somewhat timorously it might have been thought.

"Pish! what folly is this!" he muttered peevishly. "A gentleman of the road, a despoiler of timid travellers, shivering and shaking because he finds himself alone, drawing on for midnight, on a solitary bit of the King's highway! I shall be frightened of my own shadow next. Captain Nightshade would indeed laugh me to scorn."

He patted his mare on the neck and began to walk her up and down on the narrow stretch of turf which fringed the road on either hand. It was not one of the great thoroughfares running north and south, busy day and night with traffic in one or other of its manifold forms, but merely a by-road between one provincial town and another. The only living things seen by our young horseman while he waited were a drove of cattle, in charge of a couple of men, on their way to Appleford market. While they were passing he withdrew into the shade of the plantation.

After all, he had hardly so long to wait as he had feared he would have. John Dyce had not been more than a quarter of an hour gone when his straining ears caught the faint sound of wheels. He had already adjusted the crape mask he had brought with him, and settled his chin in the ample folds of the India silk muffler he had tied round his throat. He now set his hat more firmly on his head, and drew a pistol from its holster.

And now, some distance down the road, there shone two yellow points of flame, as they might be the eyes of some wild animal shining in the dark. They were the lamps of the coming chaise. Nearer and nearer sounded the hoof-beats of the horses on the hard road. A minute more and the whole concern had passed out of the moonlight into the gully of blackness in which our horseman was lurking. The moment for action had come. Three strides of his horse brought him into a line with the postilion. "Halt, or you are a dead man!" he called out in commanding tones, as he held a pistol to the man's head, and at once the horses were pulled up short on their haunches. It was not the first command of the kind that postilion had been called upon to obey.

The highwayman had brought no lantern with him. He knew, or thought he knew, quite well who the occupant of the chaise was. He could just discern a vague huddled-up figure in one corner. And now, in no uncertain voice, came the formula, sacred by long use on such occasions: "Your money or your life!" Not that it was the traveller's money our young friend was risking so much to obtain, but something very different, only he had not seen his way at the moment to vary the customary command.

The answer was a flash and a report from the interior of the chaise, and the same instant a harsh voice yelled out, "Drive on Tim, and be damned to you!" Hardly had the words left his lips before the post-boy's lash came down heavily on his horses, and the chaise sprang forward.

Unused to such surprises, the young man's horse shied violently and then backed towards the plantation, as if its rider had lost control of it. What would have happened next there is no telling, had not another horse and rider, springing from nowhere, as it seemed, appeared at this instant on the scene. Our would-be highwayman, his hat fallen off and his head thrown back, was swaying in his saddle, and the newcomer was only just in time to grasp him round the waist, and so save him from falling.

A few seconds later he gave vent to a low whistle, expressive of an amazement almost too deep for words.

"By the Lord that made me--a woman!" was his whispered ejaculation.

[CHAPTER II.]

IN SEARCH OF A LODGING.

It was not the chaise of timorous-hearted Mr. Tew, but of hot-tempered Sir Humphrey Button, which the young highwayman had so valorously bidden to halt.

At the last moment Mr. Tew had been accosted by an old friend whom he had not seen for a number of years, and had been easily persuaded to put off his departure for another hour in order to talk over bygone days, and discuss a jorum or two of punch with him.

Our young friend was not long in coming to himself, and mightily surprised and discomposed he was at finding his waist firmly encircled by a sinewy arm, and to dimly discern a pair of eyes gazing intently into his own--his head was reclining on the stranger's shoulder--through the orifices of a crape mask. He was bareheaded, and his own mask had come unfastened and had fallen off. For a moment or two he felt dazed, and could not make out what had happened to him. Then in a flash he recalled everything. With a quick, resentful movement he drew himself away from the stranger's clasp, and set his back as stiff as a ramrod. For all that, his cheek was aflame with blushes, but the kindly night hid them.

"Thank you very much," he said in freezing accents, "but I am all right now. I was never taken like it before, and trust I never shall be again. It was too ridiculous."

"Let us hope that you were more startled than hurt," said the other. "For all that, it was a close shave."

With that he swung himself off his horse, and, going a yard or two down the road, he picked up the youngster's hat and mask.

"There's a bullet-hole through the brim," he remarked, as he handed him his property. "Yes, a very close shave indeed." Then, as he proceeded to remount his horse, he added with a mellow laugh, "If an old professor may venture an opinion, you are a prentice hand at this sort of business."

"Yes, indeed. This is my first adventure of the kind, and I am quite sure it will be my last. If you are under the impression," he continued, with a touch of hauteur which seemed to become him naturally, "that the object of my adventure to-night was merely the replenishing of my pockets by the emptying of those of somebody else, you were never more mistaken. My intent was not money or jewels, but to obtain possession of a will--of a most iniquitous will--the destruction of which would have the effect of righting a great wrong. Unhappily, my attempt has failed, and the wrong will never be righted. I mistook my man. The traveller in the chaise was not the person I was expecting. He has doubtless made up his mind to stay the night at Appleford."

"A very wise resolve on his part, considering how unsafe the King's highway is for honest folk after dark," retorted the elder man, with his careless laugh. "But tell me this, young sir. Even if you had succeeded in getting possession of the will and destroying it, what would there have been to hinder the testator from having a fresh one drawn up in precisely similar terms?"

"Merely the fact that he is given up by the doctors, and that, in the event of the first will having been destroyed, he would not have lived to have a second one drawn up and signed. At any moment he may breathe his last. Possibly he is dead already."

"Your heroic attempt to right a great wrong is of a nature to appeal to every generous heart. Such being the case, it will not, perhaps, be deemed presumptuous on my part to suggest that where you have failed it is just possible that I might succeed. Should you, therefore, be pleased to accept of my services, I beg to assure you that they are yours to command." Here he removed his hat and swept the youngster a low bow.

The other hesitated for a few moments, as hardly knowing in what terms to reply, but when he did speak it was with no lack of decision. "From the bottom of my heart I thank you, sir, for your offer, which I assure you I appreciate at its full value; but, for certain reasons which I am not at liberty to explain, it is quite out of the question that I should avail myself of it."

"In that case, there is nothing more to be said. Will it be deemed an impertinence on my part if I ask in what direction you are now bound?"

Neither of them had noticed a huge black cloud which had been gradually creeping up the sky, and which at this moment burst in a deluge of rain. As by mutual consent, the two men who had so strangely come together pricked up their horses and sought such shelter as the plantation afforded from the downpour.

Then said the younger man in reply to the other's question: "What I am anxious to do is to find my way into the Whinbarrow road, after which I shall manage well enough."

"Do you know the way to it from here?"

"No more than a dead man."

"It's an awkward road to hit on after dark, and you might flounder about till daybreak without finding it. In five minutes from now what little moonlight there's left will be swallowed up by this confounded rain-cloud, after which it will be as dark as the nethermost pit. On such a night for you, a stranger, to attempt to find the Whinbarrow road would be the sheerest madness."

"What, then, do you recommend me to do?"

"I will tell you. Not more than three miles from here stands a lonely house among the moors, Rockmount by name. Its owner, a solitary, is a man well advanced in years--a scholar and a bookworm. But although leading such a secluded life, his door is open day and night to any one who--like yourself--has lost his way, or who craves the shelter of his roof on any account whatever. To Rockmount you must now hie you and put Mr. Ellerslie's hospitality to the proof: that you will not do so in vain I am well assured. I know the way and will gladly guide you there. Come, let us lose no more time. This cursed rain shows no signs of leaving off."

"But if this part of the country is so well known to you," urged the other, "why not direct me the way I want to go, instead of pressing me--and at this hour of the night--to intrude on the hospitality of a stranger?"

"There are two, if not more, very sufficient reasons why I am unable to oblige you in this matter," responded the other dryly. "In the first place, I could not direct you, as you call it, into the Whinbarrow road. On such a night as this no directions would avail you; I should have to lead you there, and plant the nose of your mare straight up the road before leaving you. In the second place, my way lies in an opposite direction. Matters of moment need my presence elsewhere, and before the first cock begins to crow I must be a score miles from here."

As if to bar any further discussion in the matter, he took hold of the bridle of the other's horse and, leading the way out of the plantation, started off at an easy canter up the road in the direction taken by the chaise. The younger man offered no opposition to the proceeding.

He seemed little more than a boy, and the night's adventures had fluttered his nerves. To go wandering about in the pitch-dark, hunting for a road that was wholly strange to him--not one of the great highways, which he could hardly have missed, but a narrow cross-country turnpike which had nothing to distinguish it from half-a-dozen other roads--was more than he was prepared to do. He felt like one in a half-dream; all that had happened during the last hour had an air of unreality; he was himself, and yet not himself. To-night's business seemed to separate him by a huge gap both from yesterday and to-morrow. His will was in a state of partial suspension; he allowed himself to be led blindly forward, he neither knew nor greatly cared whither.

Before long they turned sharply to the left up a rutted and stony cart-track, which apparently led right into the heart of the moors. Here they could only go slowly, trusting in a great measure to the instinct and surefootedness of their horses. The highwayman still kept hold of the other's bridle. The rain had in some measure abated, and a rift in the clouds low down in the east was slowly broadening.

Not a word had passed between them since they left the plantation. But now, as if the silence had become irksome to him, the man with the crape mask burst into song. His voice was a full, clear baritone:

"Oh, kiss me, Childe Lovel," she breathes in his ear;
"Night's shadows flee fast, the moon's drown'd in the mere."
He turns his head slowly. "Christ! what is't I see?
A demon rides with me!" shrieks Ellen O'Lee.

When he had come to the end of the verse, he drew forth his snuff-box, tapped it, opened it, and with a little bow proffered it to his companion.

The moon had come out again, dim and watery, by this time, and they were now enabled to see each other so far as outlines and movements were concerned, although the more minute points of each other's appearance were still to some extent conjectural.

"Bien oblige, monsieur," replied the younger man, "but snuff-taking is an acquirement--I ought, perhaps, to say an accomplishment--to which as yet I cannot lay claim, and, in so far, my education may be said to be incomplete."

"'Tis a necessary part of a gentleman's curriculum--a pinch of Rappee or good Kendal Brown serves at once to soothe the nerves, disperse the vapors, and enliven the brain. But you are young yet, my dear sir--oh, les beaux jours de la jeunesse!--and, with luck, have many years before you for the cultivation of a habit which, unlike other habits I could name, the older you grow the more quiet satisfaction you derive from the practice of it. Amid the straits and disappointments of life, when his fortunes are at their lowest, and his fair-weather friends have fallen one by one away, many a man draws his truest consolation from his snuff-box."

"You speak like one grown old both in years and experience," said the other laughingly. He was recovering his sang-froid, and, the failure of his enterprise notwithstanding, was beginning to enjoy the adventure for the adventure's sake.

The highwayman gave vent to an audible sigh. "Experience keeps a dear school," he said, "and 'tis only fools who fail to learn at it."

And so for a time they rode on in silence. Then said the younger man, "You seem to know your way hereabouts pretty well."

"The home of my youth was no great distance away, and, as a lad, I wandered over these moors and fells till I grew to know them, as one might say, by heart."

"Have we much farther to go, may I ask?"

"Another ten minutes will bring us to our destination." With that he proceeded to remove his mask and stuff it into one of his pockets.

For a little while they jogged along side by side without speaking. The tract of country they were traversing was wild and desolate in the extreme. On every side stretched the bare swelling moorland--bare save for the short sparse grass and the many-hued mosses which grew in its hollows and more sheltered places, but left naked its huge ribs and bosses of granite, which showed through the surface in every direction, and seemed to crave the decent burial which only some great cataclysm of nature could give them. Here and there at wide intervals a narrow track-way unwound itself like a dusky ribbon till it was lost in the distance. These rude by-roads had been in use for more centuries than history or tradition knew of, and served to connect one outlying hamlet with another. Over them from time to time paced great droves of cattle and sheep on their way to one or other of the frequent fairs which in those days, far more than now, brought the country-side together and formed one of the most distinctive features of English rural life.

"Here we are at last," said the highwayman, as an indefinite mass of black buildings loomed vaguely before them--for the rain was over and gone, and the moon was again shining in a clear sky--which presently, as they drew nearer, took on the shape of a long, low, two-storied house, with a high-pitched roof and twisted chimneys, and having a group of detached outbuildings in the rear.

As they reined in their horses a few yards from the low wall, which enclosed a space of rank and untended shrubbery, the younger horseman saw, not without a sense of misgiving, that the whole front of the house was in darkness. Not the faintest glimmer of light was anywhere visible.

"And do you mean to tell me," he asked in a low voice, for a sense of night and darkness was upon him, "that this desolate and out-of-the-world spot is any one's home?"

"It is the home of Mr. Cope-Ellerslie, as I have already remarked."

"How far away is Mr. Ellerslie's nearest neighbor?"

"Four good miles, as the crow flies. But he is a recluse and a student, and the loneliness of Rockmount was probably his main inducement for becoming its tenant."

"In any case, we are too late to-night to claim his hospitality. There is not a light anywhere visible."

"You mean that there's none to be seen from where we are standing," retorted the highwayman dryly. "But that's no proof Mr. Ellerslie's abed. He's a genuine nightbird, and often does not go to roost before daybreak, so busy is he over his studies of one kind or another."

At another time the younger man might have wondered how his law-breaking companion had acquired such an intimate knowledge of the habits of the recluse of Rockmount, but just then he had other things to think about.

"Follow me," said the highwayman, and with that he walked his horse round a corner of the house, to where a large bow window, invisible before, bulged out from the main building.

"That is the window of Mr. Ellerslie's study," he resumed. "You can see by the light shining through the circular openings at the top of the shutters that he is still at work."

"That may be," rejoined the other, "but doubtless all his household are asleep long ago, and rather than disturb Mr. Ellerslie himself at such an hour I would----"

"What a fastidious young cock-o'-wax you are!" broke in the elder man. "Do you think I would have brought you here if there had been nobody but Mr. E. to the fore? As I happen to know, his old manservant never on any account goes to bed before his master. Him we shall find as wide awake as an owl at midnight. Follow me."

He led the way back to where a ramshackle, loosely-hung gate, merely on latch, gave admittance to a gravelled path which led up to a small carriage-sweep in front of the house, on reaching which, at the instance of the highwayman, they both dismounted. Then going up to the door, he lifted the massive knocker and struck three resounding blows with it slowly one after the other; after which, going back to his companion, he said, "Here, young sir, we must part."

"But not, I trust, before you have told me to whom I am indebted for the very great service you have rendered me to-night."

A bitter laugh broke from the other. "My real name," he said, "is that of a broken and ruined man, whom the world already has well-nigh forgotten. That by which I am customarily known nowadays is--Captain Nightshade, at your service."

The younger man showed no trace of surprise. "I suspected as much from the first," he said. "In this part of the country only one gentleman of the road does us the honor of taking toll of us. The rest are scum--mere vulgar ruffians, ripe for the gallows-tree."

"Sir, you flatter me"--with a grave inclination of the head. "May I, in my turn, if it be not deemed an impertinence, ask to whom I am indebted for an hour of the pleasantest companionship it has been my good fortune to enjoy for many a long day?"

"My name? Hum! I must consider. By the way, you remarked a little while ago, and very truly, that, as far as your profession was concerned, I was a prentice hand. Suppose, then, that you call me Jack Prentice. 'Twill serve as well as another."

"Mr. Jack Prentice let it be, with all my heart. 'Tis a name I shall not forget. Ah! here comes somebody in answer to my summons." And, indeed, there was a noise as of the undoing of the bolts and bars of the massive door, which, a few seconds later, was opened wide, disclosing a gray-haired serving-man in a faded livery, who stood there staring into the darkness, shielding with one hand a lighted candle which he carried in the other.

Captain Nightshade strode up to the door, and in his easy, off-hand way said, "You are one of Mr. Ellerslie's servants, I presume?"

"I be," answered the old man laconically.

"Then be good enough to present my compliments to your master, the compliments of a neighbor--hem!--and tell him there's a young gentleman at the door who has been belated on the moors and craves the hospitality of Rockmount for the remainder of the night."

Mr. Jack Prentice had followed close on the captain's heels, and, as the candlelight shone full on the latter's face, he had now, for the first time, an opportunity of seeing what the noted highwayman was like. What he saw was a long, lean, brown face, the face of an ascetic it might almost have been termed, had it not been contradicted by a pair of black, penetrating eyes of extraordinary brilliancy, and by a mobile, changeable mouth which rarely wore the same expression for three minutes at a time. His rounded, massive chin seemed a little out of keeping with the rest of his features, as though it belonged of right to another type of face. His high nose, thin and curved, with its fine nostrils, lent him an air of breeding and distinction. In figure he was tall and sinewy. His black hair, tied into a queue not more than half the size of his companion's, showed no trace of powder. His prevailing expression might be said to be one of almost defiant recklessness mingled with a sort of cynical good-humor. It was as though into an originally noble nature a drop of subtle poison had been distilled, which had served to muddy and discolor it, so that it no longer reflected things in their true proportions, without having been able to more than partially corrupt it.

The old man-servant's lips worked as though he were mumbling over the message with which he had been charged, then with a curt nod he turned away, and, putting down his candlestick on a side table, was presently lost to view in the gloom of the corridor beyond the entrance-hall.

If Captain Nightshade had any consciousness of the brief but keen scrutiny to which he had been subjected, he failed to betray it. While they were awaiting the man's return, he slowly paced the gravelled sweep, singing in a low voice a snatch of a ditty the last line of which had something to do with "ruby wine and laughing eyes."

Then the serving-man came back.

"The master bids yo welcome," he said. "There's supper, bed, and breakfast at yore sarvice. He's busy just now, but mayhap he'll find time to see yo for a few minutes by an' by."

"I felt assured you would not claim the hospitality of Rockmount in vain," said Captain Nightshade. "And now, my dear Mr. Prentice, I must wish you a very goodnight, coupled with the hope that sound sleep and pleasant dreams will be yours. I have a presentiment that we have not seen the last of each other, and my presentiments generally come true."

He would have turned away, but the other held out his hand. "I am your debtor for much this night," he said. "You say you have a presentiment that we shall meet again. When that time comes I may, perhaps, be able to repay you. At present 'tis out of my power to do so."

Their hands met for a moment and parted, and each bowed ceremoniously to the other. Then Captain Nightshade climbed lightly into his saddle, waved his hand, gave rein to his horse and disappeared in the darkness. The same instant a second servant appeared from somewhere, and, taking charge of Mr. Prentice's horse, led it away towards the rear of the house.

Then, with such a throb of the heart as one experiences on stepping across the threshold of the unknown, doubtful of what one may find on the other side, our young gentleman stepped across the threshold of Rockmount and heard the bolts and bars of the great door shot one by one behind him.

[CHAPTER III.]

MR. ELLERSLIE OF ROCKMOUNT.

Having resumed possession of his candlestick, the old serving-man, whose face wore a sour and suspicious look, beckoned Mr. Jack, and, leading the way, presently threw open a door at the end of a corridor, and ushered him into a spacious panelled room, in the grate of which a cosy fire was burning.

"Supper's bein' got ready, sir, and will be served in the course of a few minutes," said the man, and with that he lighted a couple of wax candles on the centre table and two more over the chimney-piece. Then he stirred up the fire to a blaze and hobbled out of the room without a word more.

Mr. Jack's first action was to relieve himself of his sodden cloak, which he laid over the back of a chair. That done, he spread his chilled fingers to the blaze, and proceeded to take stock of his surroundings.

This was soon done, for the room held nothing calculated to arrest his attention or excite his curiosity. It was sparsely furnished, and its few chairs and tables, together with the bureau in one corner, although of choice workmanship, were all venerable with age. Carpet and hearthrug alike were faded and in places worn threadbare. Of pictures or ornaments of any kind, except for a small malachite vase on the chimney-piece, the room was wholly destitute. Judging from appearances, it seemed clear that the master of Rockmount was not a wealthy man.

Scarcely had Mr. Jack concluded his survey before the door was opened, and in came a middle-aged woman, carrying a supper-tray, which she proceeded to deposit on a centre table, and then wheeled the latter nearer the fire. The tray proved to contain a cold fowl, some slices of ham, butter, cheese, bread, and a bottle of claret. To our young friend, ravenously hungry and chilled to the marrow, it seemed a supper fit for the gods.

"Will you please to ring, sir, when you are ready for your coffee?" said the woman. And then he was left alone.

Not till half an hour had gone by did he ring the bell, by which time his spirits had gone up several degrees. Intensely chagrined though he was by his failure to secure that for which he had risked so much, there was a relish about his adventure which he appreciated to the full, which appealed at once to his imagination and to the unconventional side of a character which had often vainly beat itself against the restrictions and restraints by which it was environed. He felt that to-night was a night to have lived for. It would dwell freshly in his memory to the last day of his life. For the space of one hour and a half he had been hand-and-glove with Captain Nightshade, the most redoubtable highwayman in all the North Country; and if some people might think that was nothing to be proud of, it was at any rate something to remember. Whether he was proud of it or no, he was conscious of a secret sense of elation, into the origin of which he had no wish to inquire. He only knew that he would not have foregone the night's experiences for a great deal.

But the night was not yet over, although there seemed to be some danger of his forgetting that fact, so busy were his thoughts with the events of the last couple of hours. However, the bringing in of his coffee served to break up his reverie, and he began to wonder whether he was destined to see his unknown host. He was not left long in doubt.

"Mr. Ellerslie, sir, will do himself the pleasure of waiting upon you in the course of a few minutes," said the woman.

Together with the coffee she had brought in a case of spirits, with the needful concomitants for the manufacture of grog, without a tumbler or two of which, by way of nightcap, our great-grandfathers rarely thought of wending their way bedward.

While the woman cleared the table Mr. Jack went back to his chair near the fire. The blaze, as he bent towards it in musing mood, resting an elbow on either knee, lighted up a face that was very pleasant to look upon. In shape it was a rather long oval, the cheeks as smooth and rounded as those of a girl of twenty, with that pure healthy tint in them which nothing but plenty of exposure to sun and wind can impart; indeed, if you had looked closely, you would have seen that here and there they were slightly freckled. Add to this a nose of the Grecian type, long and straight, and a short upper lip with a marked cleft in it. His hair, which was brushed straight back from his forehead, so as to help in the formation of his queue, was of the color of filberts when at their ripest, with here and there a gleam of dead gold in it. His large eyes were of the deepest shade of hazel, heavily lashed, and with a wonderful velvety softness in them, which, when he was at all excited, would glow and kindle with a sort of inner flame, or, if his temper were roused--which it easily was--would flash with scornful lightnings, while the line between his brows deepened to a veritable furrow. For, truth to tell, Mr. Jack Prentice was of a quick and somewhat fiery disposition; a little too ready, perhaps, to take offence; with an intense hatred for every kind of injustice, and a fine scorn, for the little meannesses and subterfuges of everyday life, the practice of which with many of us is so habitual and matter-of-course that we no longer recognize them for what they really are.

But if Master Jack was a little too ready, so to speak, to clap his hand on the hilt of his rapier, he never bore any after-malice. His temper would flare out and be done with it with the suddenness of a summer storm, which has come and gone and given you a taste of its quality almost before you know what has happened.

But we shall know more of "Jack," generous, loyal, and true-hearted, before we have done with him.

The door opened and Mr. Cope-Ellerslie came in. His guest stood up and turned to receive him.

The master of Rockmount was a tall, thin, elderly man, apparently about sixty years old, with a pronounced stoop of the shoulders. His outer garment was a dark, heavy robe or gaberdine, which wrapped him from throat to ankle. His long, grizzled hair, parted down the middle, fell on either side over his ears, and rested on the collar of his robe; the crown of his head was covered with a small velvet skull cap. He wore a short Vandyck beard and moustache, which, like his prominent eyebrows, were thickly flecked with gray. For the rest, his face, when seen from a little distance, looked like nothing so much as a mask carved out of ivory with the yellow tint of age upon it; but when, a little later, Jack was enabled to view it close at hand, it was seen to be marked and lined with thousands of extremely fine and minute creases and wrinkles, as it might be the face of a man centuries old. But there was nothing old about the eyes, which were very bright and of a singularly penetrative quality.

Jack started involuntarily when his own traversed them. Of whose eyes did they remind him? When and where had he seen that look before? Was it in some dream which he had forgotten till they supplied the missing link? If so, all else had escaped him.

Hardly, however, had he time to ask himself these questions before his host, advancing with a grave inclination of the head, said: "Welcome to Rockmount, young gentleman. I am happy to be in a position to extend to you the hospitality of my humble roof. You are neither the first nor the second who, having lost his bearings in this remote district, has found shelter here. You were fortunate in there being no fog to-night; at such times to be lost on the moors is not merely unpleasant, but dangerous. I am sorry my people were not prepared to put before you fare of a more recherché kind, but we are very isolated here, as you may imagine, and so few are my visitors that it would be folly to prepare for people who might never come. For my own part, I may add that I am no Sybarite."

There was a peculiarly hollow ring about Mr. Ellerslie's voice, as though it reached one from out of the depths of a cavern; and yet it seemed to his guest as if there was a note of half-familiarity in it, as if he had heard it somewhere before--it might be long ago. But that, of course, was absurd.

While speaking, Mr. Ellerslie had advanced to the fire, and, motioning his guest to resume his seat, had himself taken possession of a chair on the opposite side of the hearth.

Then Master Jack made haste to express his gratitude for the hospitality so generously extended to him.

"Very prettily turned, young gentleman," said Mr. Ellerslie, with a nod of approval when he had come to an end. "You have good choice of words, and express yourself without any trace of that affectation which nowadays mars the speech of so many of our so-called bucks and young men of ton."

The blush of ingenuous youth mantled in Jack's cheeks for a moment or two. He could not help noticing--and in after-days it was a point which often recurred to him--that his host never smiled, that no flitting shade of expression ever changed the mask-like, bloodless features. They remained wholly unmoved in their set, waxen pallor.

"And now," resumed Mr. Ellerslie, "will there be any impropriety in my asking my guest to favor me with his name? But if, for any reason whatever, he would prefer to remain incognito, he has merely to intimate as much and his reticence will be duly respected."

Mr. Jack was prepared for the question, and he answered it without hesitation. "If, Mr. Ellerslie, we should ever meet in after-days, as I sincerely trust we may, and you should accost me by the name of Frank Nevill, you will find me answer to it."

"It is a name I promise not to forget. You seem to have got my name quite pat, Mr. Nevill."

Mr. Nevill, or Mr. Prentice, or whatever his real name was, laughed a little uneasily. "It was from the--er--gentleman who acted as my guide and brought me here that I learnt it."

"How you learnt it, my dear sir, is a matter of no moment, so long as you know it. But I am forgetting that the grog is waiting to be mixed. You will join me over a tumbler, of course?"

But this his guest politely but firmly declined doing. Mr. Ellerslie was careful not to press him farther than good breeding sanctioned, which, however, did not hinder him from mixing a stiff and steaming tumbler for himself. Having tasted it and apparently found it to his liking, he went back to his seat by the fire.

"You were good enough just now, Mr. Nevill, to express a hope that you and I might some day meet again. Such a meeting, although not beyond the bounds of possibility--as, indeed, in this world, what is?--hardly comes within the range of likelihood. You are just on the point of stepping into the arena--the struggle, the turmoil, the dust, the elation of victory or, it may be, the bitterness of defeat, lie still before you; while for me it is all over. I have come out of the fight with reversed arms, I have left the sweating crowd and its plaudits--plaudits never showered upon me!--behind me forever. Here, in this rude hermitage--somewhat bleak, of a truth, in winter time--I hope to pass the remainder of my days, as Mr. Pope so aptly expresses, it, 'the world forgetting, by the world forgot.' Therefore, my dear Mr. Nevill, the chances are that after to-night you and I are hardly likely to meet again. To you belong the golden possibilities of the future, to me nothing but memories."

He stirred his grog, took a good pull at it, and then went on with his monologue:--

"Rockmount has now been my home for a couple of years, and I have no desire to leave it. Here I live in the utmost seclusion with my books and a few scientific instruments. An act of the blackest treachery drove me from the world, a ruined man, bankrupt in hope, in friendship, in means, with not one illusion left of all those with which----but I weary you with my egotistic maunderings. Besides, the hour is late--I cannot expect you to be such a night-owl as I am--and doubtless you are hungering for your bed."

Nevill protested, a little mendaciously, that he was not at all tired. Tired he was, but not sleepy. He would willingly have sat out the rest of the night with his singular host.

Presently Mr. Ellerslie, having finished the remainder of his grog, said, "By the way, towards which point of the compass are you desirous of bending your steps in the morning?"

"If I could only find my way to the Whinbarrow road, I should know where I was."

"One of my fellows shall go with you and not leave you till he has put you into it. You have but to name your own hour for breakfast, and Mrs. Dobson will have it ready for you."

He rose, as intimating that the moment for retiring had come. A light was burning in the entrance-hall, and two bed-candles had been placed in readiness, one of which Mr. Ellerslie proceeded to light.

At the foot of the stairs he held out his hand. It was a long, lean, sinewy hand, Nevill could not help noticing, and not at all like that of a man on whom age had in other respects set its unmistakable seal.

"I am one of those mortals who have an uncomfortable habit of turning night into day," remarked the elder man as he clasped his guest's fingers. "I usually sit up till dawn is in the sky, and, as a consequence, I sleep till late in the forenoon. As you tell me that you want to be on your way at an early hour, I had better, perhaps, say both good-night and good-bye here and now----Ah, a mouse!"

Frank Nevill gave a backward spring, and a little frightened cry escaped his lips. Next moment the blood rushed to his face, and he felt as if he could have bitten his tongue out for betraying him as it had.

But Mr. Ellerslie seemed to have noticed nothing. "We have not many such vermin, I am happy to say," he resumed after a momentary pause. "But these old country houses are seldom altogether free of them."

And so presently they parted.

Mrs. Dobson was awaiting Nevill at the head of the stairs. "Your room, sir, is the third door on the left down the corridor," she said. "At what hour would you be pleased to like breakfast?"

"Will eight o'clock be too early?"

"No hour you may name will be either too early or too late, sir."

"Then eight o'clock let it be."

Thereupon the woman curtsied, wished him a respectful good-night, and left him.

As soon as he found himself in the room indicated, and with the door not merely shut but locked, he sat down with an air of weariness, almost of despondency. Body and brain were alike tired out, yet never had he felt more wakeful than at that moment. Even had he been in the habit of trying to analyze his emotions, which he certainly was not, the effort to do so would have puzzled him just then. The bitter consciousness that he had failed in the endeavor for which he had risked so much was always with him, lurking, as it were, in the background of his brain. He felt it like a dull, persistent ache which never quite let go its hold of him, whatever other subject might be occupying the forefront of his thoughts. And then, there were all the other events of the day just ended, which----

He started to his feet. "I shall have to-morrow and a hundred to-morrows in which I shall have nothing to do but think, and think, and think. If I begin the process to-night I shall not sleep a wink."

As yet he had given neither a thought nor a glance to the room, but he now began to look about him with a little natural curiosity.

It was a somewhat gloomy chamber, the walls having been originally painted a dull chocolate color, which had not improved with the passage of time. In one corner was a large four-poster bed, with furniture of dark moreen. The dressing-table of black oak was crowded with an assortment of toilet requirements and appurtenances, silver-mounted and of most elegant workmanship.

Then his wandering glances were arrested by something--a garment of snowy whiteness--which had been laid over the back of a chair. Mr. Nevill, crossing to it, took it up gingerly and opened it. It proved to be a fine lawn chemise de nuit, frilled and trimmed with beautiful lace--a garment such as a duchess might have worn, but certainly never intended to be worn by one of the opposite sex.

Our young friend dropped it as if it were a red-hot cinder, and, sinking into the nearest chair, covered his face with his hands. From head to foot he felt as if he were one huge blush.

[CHAPTER IV.]

THE SQUIRE OF STANBROOK.

Before proceeding to narrate the sequel of the strange adventure of the soi-disant Mr. Frank Nevill, it may be as well that the reader should be made acquainted with the circumstances to which was owing his appearance on the King's highway in the character of an amateur Claude Duval.

At the time with which our narrative has to do, Mr. Ambrose Cortelyon, commonly known as Squire Cortelyon, of Stanbrook, an old family seat in one of the most northern counties of England, was well over his seventieth birthday. Thrown by his horse more than twenty years before, he had not only broken his leg, but three or four of his ribs into the bargain.

Surgical science in those days, especially in country places, was not what it is now. His leg was badly set, with the result that from that time he had been a partial cripple, who when he walked any distance alone, had to do so with the help of a couple of stout sticks, but who usually preferred the arm of his factotum, Andry Luce, and one stick.

Andry--of whom we shall hear more later--was a man of forty, with a big, shaggy head and the torso of an athlete set on the short, bowed legs of a dwarf. Further, he was dumb (the result of a fright when a child), a deficiency which only caused his employer to value him the more. He was clever with his pen and at figures, and kept the Squire's accounts and wrote most of his letters, for Mr. Cortelyon hated pen work, and besides suffered occasionally from gout in his fingers.

Finally, Andry filled up his spare time by dabbling in chemistry in an amateurish fashion, being quite content to experiment on the discoveries of others, and having no ambition to adventure on any of his own.

A full-length oil painting of Squire Cortelyon, taken a short time before his accident, and still in existence, represents him as a thin, wiry-looking man of medium height, close shaven, with a long, narrow face--a handsome face, with its regular, clear-cut features, most people would call it; cold, unsympathetic light-blue eyes, and a dry, caustic smile. His dark, unpowdered hair, cut short in front, is doubtless gathered into a queue, only, as he stands facing the spectator, the picture fails to show it. He is dressed in a high-collared, swallow-tailed, chocolate-colored coat with gilt buttons. His waistcoat is of white satin, elaborately embroidered with sprays of flowers. His small-clothes, tight-fitting and of some dark woven material, reach to the ankle, where they are tied with a knot of ribbon and are supplemented by white silk stockings and buckled shoes. Round his throat is wound a soft cravat of many folds; his shirt is frilled, and he wears lace ruffles at his wrists. He stands in an easy and not ungraceful posture, looking right into the spectator's eyes. In one hand he clasps his snuffbox, deprived of which life for him would have lost half its value.

Although Squire Cortelyon courted and loved a cheap popularity, at heart he was a man of a hard and griping disposition, whose chief object in life, more especially of late years, had been the accumulation of wealth in the shape of landed property. Even in early life he had never either hunted or shot, but, for all that, he subscribed liberally to the nearest pack of hounds, as also--but less liberally--to the usual local charities. Although he employed a couple of keepers, he did not preserve too strictly, a fact which tended to his popularity among his poorer neighbors, while having an opposite effect among those of his own standing in the county. In point of fact, three-fourths of the game on his estates was shot by his keepers and sent, under his direction, for sale to the nearest large town.

When Ambrose Cortelyon, at the age of thirty-five, came into his patrimony, it was not only grievously burdened with debt, but, as far as mere acreage was concerned, owing to extravagant living on the part of his two immediate progenitors, had dwindled to little more than a third of what it had been sixty years before. From the first the new Squire made up his mind that the follies of his father and grandfather should not be repeated in his case. From the first he set two objects definitely before him, and never allowed himself to lose sight of them. Object number one was to wipe off the burden of debt he had inherited from his father. This, by the practice of rigid economy, he was enabled to do in the course of eight or ten years, after which he began to save. Object number two was to become, in the course of time, a large landowner, even as his great-grandfather and his more remote ancestors right away back to the sixteenth century had been.

Thus, in the course of time it came to pass that Ambrose Cortelyon had become the owner of sundry considerable properties (not all of them situated in his own county, but none of them farther off than a day's ride) which, owing to one cause or another, had come into the market. Every season--and what was true then seems equally true to-day--brought its own little crop of landed proprietors who, owing to improvidence or misfortune or both, had fallen upon evil days, and whenever there was a likely property in the neighborhood to be had a bargain, the Squire, or his agent Mr. Piljoy, was always to the fore.

With the former it was an article of faith that, for one reason or other, landed property would rise greatly in value in the course of the next generation or two, and so constitute a stable inheritance for those to come after him. In so believing the prescience with which he credited himself was undoubtedly at fault. Many things were to happen during the next half-century of which not even the most far-seeing of the statesmen of those days had the slightest prevision.

Squire Cortelyon was turned forty before he married. He fixed his mature affections on a banker's daughter, who brought him a dowry of ten thousand pounds, with the prospect of thirty thousand to follow at her father's demise. But three years later the bank in which Mr. Lowthian was senior partner failed, and the prospective thirty thousand went in the general smash. Such a loss to such a man was undoubtedly a terrible blow. A couple of years later still his wife died, leaving him with one child,--a son. He had felt no particular affection for her while living, and he was not hypocrite enough to pretend to mourn her very deeply now she was dead.

Ambrose Cortelyon was one of those men who never feel comfortable, or at home, in the presence of children, and as soon as Master Dick was old enough he was packed off to a public school, and for the next dozen or more years, except at holiday times, it was but little he saw either of his father or his home. From school he went to college, but with his twenty-first birthday his career at Cambridge came to an end. The life his father intended him for was that of a country gentleman, with, perhaps, an M.P.-ship in future. Where, then, would have been the use of wasting more time in competing for a degree which, even if he should succeed in taking it, would be of no after-value to him? Far better that he should spend a season or two in town, perfecting himself in his French meanwhile--the country swarmed with emigrés glad to give lessons for the merest pittance--and after that devote a couple of years to the Grand Tour. Mr. Cortelyon would have his son a man of the world, and neither a milksop nor a puritan. With his own hands he put a copy of "Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son" into Dick's valise. "A book to profit by," he said. "Let me adjure you to read and re-read it."

Dick felt more respect--which till he was grown-up had not been unmixed with awe--than affection for his father. All his life Mr. Cortelyon had been a reserved and undemonstrative man, and averse from any display of feeling or sentiment. Still, that his son was far dearer to him than aught else in life, and that he looked with secret pride and hope to moulding him in accordance with his own views and wishes, can hardly be doubted. The mistake he made was in imagining that Dick was fashioned on the same lines, mental and moral, as himself; whereas the lad took after his mother in almost every particular. Easy-going, affable to all, led far more by his heart than his head, everybody's friend and nobody's enemy but his own--how was such a young man, with his handsome person, well-lined purse, and a certain element of rustic simplicity which still clung to him, to escape shipwreck in the great maelstrom of London in one form or another?

At any rate, Dick Cortelyon did not escape shipwreck in so far as the utter ruin of his worldly prospects was concerned. He had not been a year in town before he committed the unpardonable folly--unpardonable in the only son of Squire Cortelyon--of marrying a fascinating little actress of no particular ability, who at that time was playing "chambermaid" parts at one of the patent theatres for a remuneration of a guinea a week.

The marriage was kept by Dick a profound secret both from his father and his friends. But it had to be told the former when, some months later, he summoned Dick home on purpose to inform him that it was his wish--really tantamount to a command on the part of such a man--that he should "make up" to Miss Onoria Flood, the only daughter of a neighbor, and do his best to secure her before any other suitor appeared on the scene.

When the fatal news was broken to the Squire he bundled Master Dick out of doors without a moment's hesitation. There and then he took an oath that he would never forgive him, nor ever set eyes on him again, and he was a man who prided himself on keeping his word. At once he stopped Dick's allowance.

Some few years before these things came to pass, the Squire's grand-niece--granddaughter of his sister Agatha--an orphan left without means beyond a narrow pittance of eighty pounds a year, had come to live at Stanbrook, no other home being open to her. Although there was a difference of some six years in their ages, and although they had only met at intervals, they had been to each other like elder brother and younger sister. From the first Miss Baynard had conceived an almost passionate liking and admiration for her handsome, kind-hearted kinsman, and now that poor Dick was leaving home never to return, she contrived to have a stolen interview with him before he went. Although only just turned sixteen, she was in many things wise beyond her years, and before parting from Dick she obtained from him an address at which, he told her, a letter would at any time find him. Not being sure what his future movements might be, he gave her the address of his wife's uncle, who kept a tobacconist's shop in a street off Holborn. That done, Dick kissed her and went, and with his going half the sunshine seemed to vanish out of Nell's life.

At once Dick Cortelyon broke with his old life and all its associations. The fashionable world knew him no more: he disappeared, he went under. He took a couple of furnished rooms in an obscure neighborhood, and for the next few months his wife's earnings and the proceeds of the sale of his watch and trinkets kept the pair of them. But there came a time when his wife could earn no more; and then a son was born to him. In this contingency he deemed himself a fortunate man in being able to get a lot of copying to do for a law firm in Chancery Lane.

But poor Dick's trials and troubles--the fruit, as every reasonable person must admit, of his own headstrong folly--were not destined to be of long duration. When his child was about six months old he caught a fever, and died after a very short illness. One of his last requests was that when all was over his wife should write and inform Miss Baynard of his death. This Mrs. Cortelyon did not fail to do. Her letter conveyed the double news of Dick's death and the birth of his son.

"He gave her the address
of his wife's uncle."

Miss Baynard at once took the letter to her uncle. His sallow face became still sallower as he read the account of his son's death, but a frown deeper than the girl had ever seen on them before darkened his features by the time he had come to the end of the letter.

"Had Dick not been idiot enough to wed that play-acting huzzy," he said, "the lad would have been alive today. I owe his loss to her. Neither her nor her brat will I ever countenance or acknowledge. Tell her so from me. Stay, though; you may send her this ten-pound note, with the assurance that it is the last money she will ever receive at my hands."

A few days later the note was returned to the Squire through the post, accompanied by a few unsigned lines to the effect that the widow of Richard Cortelyon would accept no help at the hands of the man who had treated her husband with such inhuman cruelty.

Not long after this Miss Baynard wrote to the widow, to the address furnished by her in her letter, mentioning how attached she had been to Dick, and hinting delicately at the happiness it would afford her to send Mrs. Cortelyon a little monetary help now and again. But at the end of a fortnight her letter came back marked, "Gone away--present address not known," and enclosed in an official envelope. It had been opened and resealed by the post-office authorities. As it happened, the letter fell into the Squire's hands, who, noticing only the official envelope, opened it without perceiving that it was addressed to his niece. As a consequence he at once sent for her.

After explaining how it happened that he had opened the letter, he continued: "I am astonished and annoyed, Nell--very seriously annoyed--that, after what thou heard me say two or three weeks ago, thou should have chosen of thy own accord to communicate with this play-acting creature, and even to offer to help her out of thy own scanty means. Fortunately, the woman has disappeared. No doubt she has gone back to the life and the companions that are most congenial to her--curses on her for a vile baggage! To her I owe it that my boy lies mouldering in the grave. Never again, Nell, on pain of offending me past forgiveness, do thou attempt to have aught to do with her. 'Tis beneath thee to notice such creatures in any way--and she above all others."

It was an injunction which Nell--who had listened to his tirade with a sort of proud disdain and without a word of reply--determined to obey or disobey as circumstances might determine. For the present she was helpless to do more than she had done. Unfortunately, she had mislaid the address given her by Dick at parting, otherwise she might perhaps have been able to obtain tidings of Mrs. Cortelyon through the latter's uncle, the London tobacconist.

[CHAPTER V.]

FAMILY MATTERS.

Four years passed away without bringing any further tidings of the widow and her child, during all which time their names were not once mentioned between uncle and niece. By the latter their existence was by no means forgotten; she often thought about them, often longed to see them. Whether it ever entered the mind of Squire Cortelyon that he had a living grandson was known to himself alone. He grew old and made no sign.

Meanwhile Miss Baynard had shot up from a lanky slip of a girl into a very beautiful young woman.

When she first went to live at Stanbrook, the Squire, having no female element in his house of a higher status than that of housekeeper, engaged the services of Mrs. Budd--widow of the Rev. Onesimus Budd--for the dual positions of gouvernante and companion to his orphan niece. Mrs. Budd's duties as governess had long ago come to an end, but therewith she had assumed what to many people would have seemed the much more responsible and onerous post of chaperon. But, although a clever little woman in her way, Mrs. Budd was nothing if not easy-going. For her the wheels of existence were always well oiled. Nothing disturbed her much. Responsibility slid off her like water off a duck's back. Life for her meant little more than a sufficiency of sofas fitted with the softest cushions. She was excessively good-natured, and, hating to be worried herself, was careful never to worry others. She and her charge got on capitally together, chiefly because she was too wise ever to offer any very strenuous opposition to the whims and vagaries of that self-willed young woman. A mild protest, by way of easement to her conscience, she did now and then venture upon, which, however, Miss Baynard would brush aside with as little effort or compunction as she would a cobweb.

To some of Squire Cortelyon's neighbors it seemed an inconsistency on his part that he, who had packed off his son to school at the earliest possible age, should have taken to his hearth, and have kept her there, an orphan niece of no fortune, when he might so easily have rid himself of her in the same way that he had rid himself of Dick. And certainly, as has been remarked, the Squire was no lover of children, and was generally credited with not having an ounce of sentiment in his composition. For all that, Miss Baynard stayed on at Stanbrook, knowing no other house, her great-uncle so far relaxing his ingrained parsimony on her account as to pay Mrs. Budd's salary without a murmur, and allow his niece a few--a very few--guineas a year by way of pocket-money.

Perhaps it might be said of Ambrose Cortelyon that he had never really cared but for one person, and that one his sister Agatha, who had been the solitary ray of sunshine that had brightened the home-life of his youth--a youth repressed and stunted, and thrown back upon itself, but in all higher respects uncared for, under the rule of a tyrannical and passionate father, who was accustomed to flog him unmercifully for the most trivial offences, and of an indifferent, cold-hearted mother, who left her children to vegetate in the country for three parts of the year, while she led the life of a woman of fashion in town.

But Agatha Cortelyon, in the course of time, had grown tired and sick of her life at home, and had ended by running away with, and becoming the wife of, an impecunious young lieutenant in a marching regiment. Thereafter brother and sister had never met. The young wife had died three years later, leaving one daughter, who in her turn had grown up and married, but who had never been acknowledged or recognized in any way by her mother's family. She also had died young, her husband having pre-deceased her, leaving one child, the Miss Elinor Baynard with whom we have now to do.

Not till then did Ambrose Cortelyon become aware of the existence of his grand-niece. He had heard at the time of his sister's death, but no further news having reference to her husband or child had reached him, nor had he ever felt the least inclination to seek for any. Thus, to find himself with a girl of twelve, of whom he had never heard, thrown on his hands was for him anything but an agreeable surprise. Immediately after her mother's funeral the child had been packed off to Stanbrook by some half-cousins of her dead father--who had neither the means nor the will to keep her--with almost as little ceremony as if she had been a Christmas hamper.

The Squire happened to be out riding when Nell was put down by the coach at the gate of Stanbrook, and it fell to Mrs. Dace, the housekeeper, to break the news to him on his return and hand him a letter from one of the half-cousins which the girl had brought with her. When, an hour later, the Squire, in response to Nell's timid knock at the library door, gruffly bade her enter, he was quite prepared to dislike her at first sight, and had already determined in his mind to at once pack her off to some cheap country school, and so rid himself, at any rate for some time to come, of her unwelcome presence under his roof.

Yet somehow he did neither one nor the other. Was it because he was struck by a vague, elusive something in the girl's eyes, her air, her manner, and the way she carried her head, which brought vividly to mind the half-forgotten image of the dead-and-gone sister of his youth, that his determination to send her away presently melted into thin air and never again took shape in his thoughts? In any case, from that day forward Stanbrook was Nell's home; but that its being so was due not so much to the mere tie of relationship, by which her uncle set no great store, as to a sentimental recollection on his part, was what she had no knowledge of and would have found hard to credit. She had grown up self-willed and high-spirited, and with no small share of that determination of character--some people, chiefly such as had come into contact with it, stigmatized it as sheer obstinacy--for which the Cortelyons had always been noted. But above and beyond that, she had an intense scorn for all that was mean, base, sordid, or double-faced, and she was never slow to give expression to it.

For many of the small conventions and grandmotherly restrictions with which society at that period (leaving the present out of question) saw fit to hedge round its fledglings, she betrayed a fine indifference, going her own way without let or hindrance, and without deigning a thought to what others might say or think about her. That she should be regarded with favorable eyes by mothers with daughters about the same age as herself could hardly be expected. They averred that she set their darlings "a dangerous example"; but many of the darlings in question secretly envied her, and wished that a kind fate had allowed of their following her example.

Her uncle must be credited with allowing her to do pretty much as she liked. There was nothing strait-laced about the Squire. He was a strenuous hater of shams in others, while not being without a few little weaknesses of his own; and his niece's somewhat wilful independence of character secretly delighted him, even when, as sometimes happened, it opposed itself to his own flinty will, and sparks resulted from the collision.

Between two people so constituted there could be and was no question of sentiment. From the first it had seemed to Nell that her uncle simply tolerated her presence under his roof. He had taken her in because no other door was open to her, and because it would never have done for Squire Cortelyon's niece to have sought the shelter of the workhouse. His kindness, if kindness it could be called, had in it, or so she fancied, a certain grudging element which deprived it of whatever grace it might otherwise have had.

She knew nothing of a certain strange, haunting likeness on her own part, nor how often, when her uncle's eyes seemed to be watching her every movement, it was not her he saw at all, but some one known to her only by hearsay, who had been in her grave these forty years or more.

When Dick Cortelyon had been a little more than four years in his grave, the Squire, acting on his doctor's advice, went up to London for the purpose of undergoing a certain operation. It was an operation which is not usually supposed to be attended with any particular risk, and Mr. Cortelyon was quite cheerful about it; but of course in such a case, although he did not seem to think so, the question of age becomes an important factor. At this time he was within a month or so of his seventy-second birthday, but, barring his permanent lameness, the result of an accident a score years before, he avouched himself to be--and he fully believed it--as brisk and robust as when he was only half that age.

So up to town, accompanied by his niece, he travelled by easy stages in the roomy and comfortable, if somewhat lumbering, family chariot, which dated from his grandfather's time; while, perched in the rumble, Tatham, his body-servant, made platonic love to Miss Baynard's elderly maid, who had not known what it was to feel a man's arm round her waist for more years than she cared to remember.

Comfortable lodgings in Bloomsbury had been secured beforehand, and there the operation was presently performed by one of the most eminent surgeons of the day.

Everything went well with the Squire, as he had felt sure from the first it would do, and at the end of six weeks he was back at Stanbrook thoroughly cured.

But Miss Baynard, when she found herself in London, set herself a task she had hitherto had no opportunity of undertaking. This was nothing less than the hunting-up of her dead cousin's widow and child.

As already stated, she had lost the address given her by Dick, and had never afterwards found it. She remembered that the name on the slip of paper, that of Dick's wife's uncle, was McManus, and that the man was a tobacconist in a small way of business in one of the many turnings off Holborn, but the name of the street itself she had clean forgotten.

Fortunately for her purpose, there was a sharp youth connected with the lodgings who, besides making himself generally useful indoors, was willing to run on errands of any and every kind for anybody disposed to pay for his services. Him Miss Baynard engaged to discover for her what she wanted to know; nor had she long to wait. Within a very few hours he placed in her hands the address of Mr. McManus.

[CHAPTER VI.]

A MAN WHO NEVER FORGAVE.

To the address thus obtained by her--her uncle being now well on the road to recovery--Miss Baynard went next afternoon in a hackney-coach, accompanied by her maid.

Mr. McManus, a little, old, and very snuffy man, with a shrewd but kindly expression, readily furnished her with the information asked for, after Nell had introduced herself and told him for what purpose she wanted it.