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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."
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