thin twelve
miles of the south sea.'
It was on the grass before this seductive and picturesque structure that
the sailor stood at gaze under the elms in the dim dawn of Sunday
morning, and saw to his surprise his sister's lover and horse vanish
within the court of the building.
Perplexed and weary, Roger slowly retreated, more than ever convinced
that something was wrong in his sister's position. He crossed the
bowling green to the avenue of elms, and, bent on further research, was
about to climb into one of these, when, looking below, he saw a heap of
hay apparently for horses or deer. Into this he crept, and, having eaten
a crust of bread which he had hastily thrust into his pocket at the inn,
he curled up and fell asleep, the hay forming a comfortable bed, and
quite covering him over.
He slept soundly and long, and was awakened by the sound of a bell. On
peering from the hay he found the time had advanced to full day; the sun
was shining brightly. The bell was that of the 'faire chappell' on the
green outside the gatehouse, and it was calling to matins. Presently the
priest crossed the green to a little side-door in the chancel, and then
from the gateway of the mansion emerged the household, the tall man whom
Roger had seen with his sister on the previous night, on his arm being a
portly dame, and, running beside the pair, two little girls and a boy.
These all entered the chapel, and the bell having ceased and the environs
become clear, the sailor crept out from his hiding.
He sauntered towards the chapel, the opening words of the service being
audible within. While standing by the porch he saw a belated servitor
approaching from the kitchen-court to attend the service also. Roger
carelessly accosted him, and asked, as an idle wanderer, the name of the
family he had just seen cross over from the mansion.
'Od zounds! if ye modden be a stranger here in very truth, goodman. That
wer Sir John and his dame, and his children Elizabeth, Mary, and John.'
'I be from foreign parts. Sir John what d'ye call'n?'
'Master John Horseleigh, Knight, who had a'most as much lond by
inheritance of his mother as 'a had by his father, and likewise some by
his wife. Why, bain't his arms dree goolden horses' heads, and idden his
lady the daughter of Master Richard Phelipson, of Montislope, in Nether
Wessex, known to us all?'
'It mid be so, and yet it mid not. However, th' 'lt miss thy prayers for
such an honest kn
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