own home, closely clasped by a tall wicked-looking man wrapped in a
scarlet cloak, the outcry was doubled. There was nothing to be done,
though, but to give the stranger a suit of Mr. Hamlyn's clothes, and some
food, and very comely he looked in the long coat, the handsome waistcoat,
knee-breeches, and buckled shoes.

He accepted the clothes, and the food, and indeed all their attention,
as a matter of course, and having informed them that his name was
Coppinger, and that he was a Dane, he seemed to think he had done all that
was required of him, and settled down in the family circle as though he
were one of them, and as welcome as though he were an old family friend.

Of the distressed vessel, and the rest of the shipwrecked crew, nothing
more was seen from the moment the big man left her. How or where she
disappeared no one knew, all eyes had been fixed on the struggling swimmer
from the moment he leapt into the sea; and when they had looked again the
ship had gone, and no trace or sign of her or her crew was ever found on
that coast, or on any other.

At first Coppinger made himself most agreeable to the people he had
appeared amongst, he was pleasant and kind beyond anything you can
imagine. Miss Dinah Hamlyn thought him a very attractive man, indeed,
and not only forgave him for his first treatment of her, but thought it
something to be proud of. Old Mr. Hamlyn liked the man, too, and was as
kind to him as could be, giving him the best he had, and even at last
consenting to his marriage with Miss Dinah herself, though against his own
feelings.

Coppinger had given out that he was a Dane of noble birth and great
wealth, who had run away to escape marrying a lady he disliked.
Old Farmer Hamlyn did not like his daughter to marry a 'furriner,' and he
considered that people should marry in their own stations; but Dinah
herself loved the man all the better for what he had told them, and
between them they soon overcame the father's scruples, and the wedding-day
was fixed.

The wedding-day had to be postponed, though, for Farmer Hamlyn fell ill,
grew rapidly worse, and in a very short time was dead and buried. As soon
as this was over a great change came over things. Master Coppinger began
to show himself in his true character, and a very black character indeed
his was! So black and so bad that for generations his mere name was a
terror to the people who lived in that part of the world, and is detested
to this