is my own
property, and haunted my park, too ... so I've been told. There was a
good deal of talk about him among the wenches in the village."

"Aye! I had heard all about that prince," said Squire Boatfield
meditatively, "lodging in this cottage ... 'twas passing strange."

"He was a curious sort of man, your Honor," here interposed Pyot. "We
got what information about him we could, seeing that the smith is from
home, and that Mistress Lambert, his aunt, I think, is hard of hearing,
and gave us many crooked answers. But she told us that the stranger paid
for his lodging regularly, and would arrive at the cottage unawares of
an evening and stay part of the night ... then he would go off again at
cock-crow, and depart she knew not whither."

The man paused in his narrative. Something apparently had caused Sir
Marmaduke to turn giddy.

He tugged at his neckbands and his hand fell heavily against the
trestle-table.

"Nay! 'tis nothing," he said with a harsh laugh as Master Mounce with an
ejaculation of deep concern ran round to him with a chair, whilst Squire
Boatfield quickly put out an arm as if he were afraid that his friend
would fall. "'Tis nothing," he repeated, "the tramp in the cold, then
this heady draught.... I am well I assure you."

He drank half a glass of brandy at a draught, and now the hand which
replaced the glass upon the table had not the slightest tremor in it.

"'Tis all vastly interesting," he remarked lightly. "Have you seen the
body, Boatfield?"

"Aye! aye!" quoth the squire, speaking with obvious reluctance, for he
hated this gruesome subject. "'Tis no pleasant sight. And were I in your
shoes, de Chavasse, I would not go in there," and he nodded
significantly towards the forge.

"Nay! 'tis my duty as a magistrate," said Sir Marmaduke airily.

He had to steady himself against the table again for a moment or two,
ere he turned his back on the hospitable board, and started to walk
round towards the forge: no doubt the shaking of his knees was
attributable to the strong liquor which he had consumed.

The little crowd parted and dispersed at his approach. The lean-to
wherein Adam Lambert was wont to do his work consisted of four walls,
one of which was that of the cottage, whilst the other immediately
facing it, had a wide opening which formed the only entrance to the
shed. A man standing in that entrance would have the furnace on his
left: and now in addition to that furnace also the thre