toilet, I called on my friend with the
gaiters and red nose (Tom Wyndsour) whose occupation was that of a
"bailiff," or under-steward, of the property, to accompany me, as we
had still an hour or so of sun and twilight, in a walk over the
grounds.

It was a sweet autumn evening, and my guide, a hardy old fellow,
strode at a pace that tasked me to keep up with.

Among clumps of trees at the northern boundary of the demesne we
lighted upon the little antique parish church. I was looking down upon
it, from an eminence, and the park-wall interposed; but a little way
down was a stile affording access to the road, and by this we
approached the iron gate of the churchyard. I saw the church door
open; the sexton was replacing his pick, shovel, and spade, with which
he had just been digging a grave in the churchyard, in their little
repository under the stone stair of the tower. He was a polite, shrewd
little hunchback, who was very happy to show me over the church. Among
the monuments was one that interested me; it was erected to
commemorate the very Squire Bowes from whom my two old maids had
inherited the house and estate of Barwyke. It spoke of him in terms of
grandiloquent eulogy, and informed the Christian reader that he had
died, in the bosom of the Church of England, at the age of
seventy-one.

I read this inscription by the parting beams of the setting sun, which
disappeared behind the horizon just as we passed out from under the
porch.

"Twenty years since the Squire died," said I, reflecting as I loitered
still in the churchyard.

"Ay, sir; 'twill be twenty year the ninth o' last month."

"And a very good old gentleman?"

"Good-natured enough, and an easy gentleman he was, sir; I don't think
while he lived he ever hurt a fly," acquiesced Tom Wyndsour. "It ain't
always easy sayin' what's in 'em though, and what they may take or
turn to afterwards; and some o' them sort, I think, goes mad."

"You don't think he was out of his mind?" I asked.

"He? La! no; not he, sir; a bit lazy, mayhap, like other old fellows;
but a knew devilish well what he was about."

Tom Wyndsour's account was a little enigmatical; but, like old Squire
Bowes, I was "a bit lazy" that evening, and asked no more questions
about him.

We got over the stile upon the narrow road that skirts the churchyard.
It is overhung by elms more than a hundred years old, and in the
twilight, which now prevailed, was growing very dark. As side-by-sid