66 "If his Lordship would hon- Clerk held it before him while our me by taking my advice," Mr Hanaper remarked, "he would leave well alone. Mr Pierrepont, the Preventive Officer, is a very active man. He does his best. And all His Majesty's fleet-with respect to you, sir-can do no more, unless they blockade the coast and picket every mile of it. But it is no affair of mine, in any case. The Revenue, thank God, is outside my jurisdiction." "Lud, yes," the Captain agreed; but his Lordship puts prodigious faith in you, Mr Hanaper. He charged me particularly to take your advice in the matter. A very able and conscientious public servant,' says he, with more oaths than I need repeat. Cursed peppery Nunks is getting with all these pothers." The young man yawned again, and stretched his shapely legs. "However, that can wait. In the morning, full of zeal and energy after our virtuous slumbers, we will bend our minds to it. There must be some one we can clap in irons. I have a very choice set of irons aboard the Carysbrooke, the invention of our late sovereign lord, King Jamie. And you will need to fill your jail again." He rose languidly to his feet. "Od's life!" said he, "duty is very fatiguing. Don't you find it so ? And have you such an article of vanity as a mirror, Mr Hanaper?" he settled his cravat, and studied, apparently with some distaste, his own swarthy features. "I'm plaguey ugly, don't you think?" he murmured. Mr Hanaper, however, was wondering uneasily what kind of business this flippant young coxcomb could be after in the town of Shayle. As if in answer to his thoughts, and so suddenly that he almost started, the Captain shot a most disturbing question at him. "Is Mr Cressey at the Manor House ? "Why-yes, I believe so, sir," the other replied, hoping he had not betrayed his dismay. And Mistress Ann ? "Yes, she will be there too. It was but yesterday I saw them both." The Clerk, when he least expected it, was suddenly aware that he was skating on very thin ice. Where was this leading? What did this popinjay want with the Manor House? The popinjay's next words, however, partially reassured him. And I have not seen them for four years," le Chemineau said reflectively. "There was a time when Mr Cressey and I were inseparables-David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Castor and Pollux, all rolled together in one manifestation of eternal friendship. We trod together, haud passibus equis, the paths of learning; together we sowed a vastly fine crop of the wildest oats. Eheu . A mirror being produced, the fugaces, Postume! Well, it will be good to see Jack again. And Mistress Ann should be growing into a modish young lady." "She is held to be a fine creature," Mr Hanaper answered, a little absently. He was thinking hard; for if in one particular his fears were again relieved, in every other the situation was highly embarrassing. He wished he had thought to deny that Mr Cressey and his sister were at their home. Yet the lie must have made the matter worse should sentiment or curiosity still have urged this pestilent interloper to fill an idle hour by calling at the Manor House. In any event, it was now the Clerk's business to get there first, to warn its unconscious master and his guests of the peril at hand. When he thought of those guests, and of the scant minutes that perhaps stood between them all and irretrievable calamity, his blood curdled. It needed all his selfcontrol to repress his fidgets and pull himself together. as he thanked the Clerk with great politeness for all his courtesies, and begged to be directed to his destination. Mr Hanaper, on pins now to be gone himself, explained that the Manor House stood at the far end of the High Street. "You turn up East Bar, Captain, and follow your nose. Allow me to show you." Outside the office the teakfaced coxswain was waiting stolidly, eyed by a group of citizens whom age or infirmities debarred from the possible attentions of a press-gang. By now, no doubt, warning had run through the town, and every able-bodied idler was on the alert. The Clerk indicated the opening of East Bar, which came down to the water front only a hundred yards away. The Captain bade him good-bye in the friendliest manner. 66 "Come, Barling," said he to the coxswain, let us follow our noses." As the pair turned the corner, Mr Hanaper hastily locked his office door; and then, at the fastest speed of which his spindly legs were capable, set off along parallel byways in Happily, Captain le Chemineau appeared to be quite ignorant of his own bombshell. His air was still preoccupied the same direction. CHAPTER II.-PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT. "Thinke not slightlye of this advertisment." East Bar climbs steeply from the river-side. At its summit, where it becomes the High Street, stands the parish church -Tresham's Letter to Lord Monteagle. of St Nicholas. In the year 1715 that singular structure known as Hearse House still abutted on the street at the west end of the churchyard. It was a narrow building, running up into a tall gable, and somewhat resembling a gatehouse, which in one sense it was. It comprised, on the ground level, a spacious coachhouse and stable; above this the living room of Solomon Abney, the custodian; and finally, a loft or attic under the high pitched roof. The whole upper façade was of plaster, ornamented by scrolls of pargetry work. Double doors opened from the coach-house to the street, and there was (as we have seen) a second and smaller entry from the churchyard. Above the main entrance an inscription was cut in stone : HEARSE HOUSE was Built & Endowed by Eternal Life. respectability. The fourth, however, introduced by his ending an element of eccentricity into the sequence, for he was found hanging in the coach-house, beside the big black hearse which the merchant's piety had placed at the post mortem disposal of the needy. and needy. The eccentric, by this act, deprived himself of the right to occupy the conveyance. In place of the pomp of lawful sepulture, a cart, a stake, and a cross-roads at midnight were his horrid portion. The incident cast a shadow upon Hearse House. Notwithstanding the stake, the suicide was said to haunt it; and it was certain that within a month two of his successors had deserted a post whose grisly associations not even free rum and brandy could render tolerable. So it fell out that old Solomon Abney, who had no character to speak of, but who seemed to revel in the company of ghosts and hearses, found an anchorage after his own heart, and continued to hold it for upwards of a decade. His opinions and behaviour might (and did) scandalise the pious; but it soon became the interest of a more influential body of citizens to maintain him in a position where he proved exceedingly useful. As he himself had remarked to Sir Bevil, haunted houses can be good for trade. It was no doubt the intention of Ethan Odbody, when he allocated certain moneys for the perpetual upkeep of his strange memorial, that the custodian's character should also be seemly and decorous. The first four who held the office (it was restricted to seafaring men of over fifty years) contrived to reach, outwardly at least, a modest standard of The old pirate, smoking a stump of blackened pipe, was sitting on a bench in the shade. outside the double doors when Captain le Chemineau, followed by his coxswain, climbed East Bar, and halted idly before the strange building to read the inscription. Solomon fixed his bloodshot eyes on the young dandy, and muttered audibly to himself. "Here's a pretty piece, sink him!" said he impudently. "Sky blue, like a rocket. An Admiral, belike. Or is it the Grand Mogul ? " Le Chemineau affected to perceive him for the first time. "Noah, begad!" he exclaimed. "And how is the Ark, Noah ? Or is it Solomon's Temple ? " The old man gave him a sharp look. "A brave guess, your Honour. Solomon it is old Sol Abney, who fought for King Charles, God save him! with the Hollanders against the Frenchies, and then with the Frenchies against the Hollanders, and again with the Hollanders against King James -turn and turn about, as you might say, and all before ever your Excellency was born. Have I met your Magnificence before ? " "Never, thank God!" the Captain said frankly. "Nor do I ever guess, Solomon-if that be your prænomen. But give me facts, and I will interpret them in similitudes, like the prophet Hosea. Exempli causa, you are a fact, Solomon, and a vastly interesting fact. Here you sit, like an old crow, gloating over the poor carcases you have conveyed, dulciter et decoriter, to the worms, when you were better employed reflecting upon your own latter end, which, if I am to believe in your veracity, should be overdue. Good-day to you." He sauntered away, pursued by Solomon's suspicious and malevolent gaze. "Od rot him!" muttered that ancient sinner. "Now what did the blistered young cockerel mean? Does he know aught, or is he the prating, Frenchified clothespole he looks, sink him? A vastly interesting fact, says he! Blast and petrify his gizzard!" Many other curious glances attended that ornate and careless figure strolling up the High Street, with the blackavised coxswain, like a watchdog, following after. The presence of the Carysbrooke in the bay was known to all the town; but ships of war were not rare phenomena along the Channel coast, nor were their officers so seldom seen in the streets of Shayle as to warrant the unconcealed interest shown in her Captain's movements. An uncommon throng of people seemed to be abroad: sober citizens and their wives, rough fellows from the river and the hills, officers and men of the militia in scarlet and buff, loitered or bustled up and down the long thoroughfare, or gathered together in whispering groups, or exchanged significant nods in shop doorways or beneath the many hanging signs of inns; and the looks that greeted the magnificent stranger were often so search concern. ing and anxious that, unless he were blind, he could not fail to be aware of something momentous in the wind that autumn afternoon. But his air of tranquil indifference remained wholly unaffected by these flattering tokens of public He seemed to see no one but the militia officers, whom he saluted punctiliously as they passed. Even the ladies of Shayle, who, thrilled agreeably by the excitement of the hour, swam or fluttered in silks and muslins, sacques and hoops, among their more serious menfolk, drew scarce a glance from him, notwithstanding the frank admiration their bright eyes expressed for this elegant creature who had fallen, like manna from the Mall, upon their provincial wilderness. When, indeed, not once nor twice he was observed to conceal a yawn behind a white and delicate hand, there were many who recanted, and vowed that he must be an insufferable boor. It is nearly half a mile from the foot of East Bar to the Manor House, for Shayle has length without breadth, consisting as it does (except for the huddle of mean lanes by the river) of the one long street. The leisurely pace of Captain le Chemineau, to whom time seemed of no account, consumed upwards of twenty minutes on this journey. If he ignored his fellow-men, he discovered a solemn interest in architecture, and often paused to discourse to his unresponsive coxswain upon the features of the buildings that they passed. Since rumour was more expeditious, when at length he reached the tall iron gates of the Manor House at the extremity of the High Street, the news of his stately progress had spread to every court and alley in the town. Behind him the throng was multiplying fast, so that the whole half-mile buzzed like a hive with talk. Many of the more curious, although keeping at a respectful distance, were unobtrusively dogging his footsteps. It was a strange and sudden upheaval to follow in the wake of a bland young gentleman paying an evening's call upon an old friend. In the meantime, before the iron gates, the cause of all this commotion, as bland and unconcerned as ever, had pulled the heavy bell, and was waiting for the porter to appear and admit him. He whistled an air from Mr Handel's opera of 'Rinaldo,' and stared with a natural curiosity through the intricate Italian scroll-work at what little he could see of his friend's home. This was little indeed. The house itself lay invisible behind a belt of beechtrees, through which a wide drive wound out of sight; but all was novel to Captain le Chemineau, and should have been of interest to him were he capable of discovering a genuine interest in anything. For in the days when he and Jack Cressey had sown their wild oats together in London, |