adjutant: 'this boy here says he's found him in the
Butcher's Wood.'

'The Butcher's Wood!--why, what the plague brought him _there_?'
exclaimed Dangerfield.

''Tis his straight road from Dublin across the park,' observed the
magistrate.

'Oh!--I thought 'twas the wood by Lord Mountjoy's,' said Dangerfield;
'and when did it happen?'

'Pooh!--some time between yesterday afternoon and half an hour ago,'
answered Mr. Lowe.

'Nothing known?' said Dangerfield. ''Twill be a sad hearing over the
way;' and he glared grimly with a little side-nod at the doctor's house.

Then he fell, like the others, to questioning the boy. He could tell
them but little--only the same story over and over. Coming out of town,
with tea and tobacco, a pair of shoes, and a bottle of whisky, for old
Mrs. Tresham--in the thick of the wood, among brambles, all at once he
lighted on the body. He could not mistake Dr. Sturk; he wore his
regimentals; there was blood about him; he did not touch him, nor go
nearer than a musket's length to him, and being frightened at the sight
in that lonely place he ran away and right down to the barrack, where
he made his report.

Just then out came Sergeant Bligh, with his men--two of them carrying a
bier with a mattress and cloaks thereupon. They formed, and accompanied
by the adjutant, at quick step marched through the town for the park.
Mr. Lowe accompanied them, and in the park-lane they picked up the
ubiquitous Doctor Toole, who joined the party.

Dangerfield walked a while beside the adjutant's horse; and, said he--

'I've had as much walking as I can well manage this morning, and you
don't want for hands, so I'll turn back when I've said just a word in
your ear. You know, Sir, funerals are expensive, and I happen to know
that poor Sturk was rather pressed for money--in fact, 'twas only the
day before yesterday I myself lent him a trifle. So will you, through
whatever channel you think best, let poor Mrs. Sturk know that she may
draw upon me for a hundred pounds, if she requires it?'

'Thank you, Mr. Dangerfield; I certainly shall.'

And so Dangerfield lifted his hat to the party and fell behind, and came
to a stand still, watching them till they disappeared over the brow of
the hill.

When he reached his little parlour in the Brass Castle, luncheon was
upon the table. But he had not much of an appetite, and stood at the
window, looking upon the river with his hands in his pockets, and a
strange pa