should be
watched by the servants. The old churchyard was full of workmen of
the navvy kind, and I learned that for the safety of the public it
had now become necessary to hurl down upon the sands some enormous
masses of the cliff newly disintegrated by the land-springs. I
descended the gangway at Flinty Point, and concealing my implements
behind a boulder in the cliff, ascended Needle Point, and went into
the town.

I had previously become aware, from conversations with my mother,
that Wynne had been succeeded as custodian of the old church by
Shales, the humpbacked tailor, and I apprehended no difficulty in
getting the keys of the church and crypt from my simple-minded
acquaintance, without arousing his suspicions as to my mission.

Therefore I went at once to the tailor's shop, but found that Shales
was out, attending an annual Odd-Fellows' carousal at Graylingham.
Consequently I was obliged to open my business to his mother, a far
shrewder person, and one who might be much more difficult to deal
with. However, the fact of the navvies being at work so close to a
church whose chancel belonged to my family afforded an excellent
motive for my visit. But before I could introduce the subject to Mrs.
Shales, I had to listen to an exhaustive chronicle of Raxton and
Graylingham doings since I had left. Hence by the time I quitted her
(with a promise to return the keys in the morning) the sun was
setting.

But, as I walked along Wilderness Road towards the church, a new and
unexpected difficulty presented itself to my mind. I could not,
without running the risk of an interruption, enter the church till
after the Odd-Fellows had all returned from Graylingham, as Shales
and his companions would have to pass along Wilderness Road, which
skirts the churchyard. Shales himself was as short-sighted as a bat;
but his companions had the usual long-sight of agriculturists, and
would descry the slightest movement in the church-yard, or any
glimmer of light at the church windows.

I would have postponed my enterprise till the morrow; but another
important appointment at the office of our solicitor with my mother,
precluded the possibility of this. So my visit to the catacomb must
perforce be late at night.

Accordingly I descended the cliff and waited to hear the return of
the carousers. There I sat down upon the well-remembered boulder,
lost in recollections of all that had passed on those sands, while
over the sea the night sp