of-Praise," she began, somewhat
nervously, "but you have made yourself look a sight."

"And by G--d I'll make that young jackanapes look a sight ere I take my
hand off him," he retorted savagely.

"But what were you ... hem! what wert thou doing up in the elm tree,
friend Hymn-of-Praise?" she asked demurely.

"Thee me no thou!" he said with enigmatic pompousness, followed by a
distinctly vicious snarl, "Master Busy will be my name in future for a
saucy wench like thee."

He turned towards the house. Mistress Charity following meekly--somewhat
subdued, for Master Busy was her affianced husband, and she had no mind
to mar her future, through any of young Courage's dare-devil escapades.

"Thou wouldst wish to know what I was doing up in that forked tree?" he
asked her with calm dignity after a while, when the hedges of the flower
garden came in sight. "I was making a home for thee, according to the
commands of the Lord."

"Not in the elm trees of a surety, Master Busy?"

"I was making a home for thee," he repeated without heeding her flippant
observation, "by rendering myself illustrious. I told thee, wench, did I
not? that something was happening within the precincts of Acol Court,
and that it is my duty to lie in wait and to watch. The heiress is about
to be abducted, and it is my task to frustrate the evil designs of the
mysterious criminal."

She looked at him in speechless amazement. He certainly looked strangely
weird in the semi-darkness with his lanky hair plastered against his
cheeks, his collar half torn from round his neck, the dripping, oily
substance flowing in rivulets from his garments down upon the ground.

The girl had no longer any desire to laugh, and when Master Busy strode
majestically across the rustic bridge, then over the garden paths to the
kitchen quarter of the house, she followed him without a word, awed by
his extraordinary utterances, vaguely feeling that in his dripping
garments he somehow reminded her of Jonah and the whale.

CHAPTER X

AVOWED ENMITY

The pavilion had been built some fifty years ago, by one of the Spantons
of Acol who had a taste for fanciful architecture.

It had been proudly held by several deceased representatives of the
family to be the reproduction of a Greek temple. It certainly had
columns supporting the portico, and steps leading thence to the ground.
It was also circular in shape and was innocent of windows, deriving its
sole light from the d