l,
he had never attempted to take any. He was enjoying the situation.
This confession in open court was a thing unknown in his experience,
and he was chiefly afraid lest the sheriff, little accustomed to this
sort of thing, and probably anxious to get home for dinner, should cut
short the sederunt.

"At this point," said Mr. Ablethorpe, who in a way assumed the position
of counsel for his strange penitent. "I would put into your lordship's
hands papers of some importance. They came from Dr. Hector, some of
them, and some out of the safe in the cellar of the Grange."

The sheriff was not in the best of humours.

"I consider all this most irregular," he growled--"a court of justice
is not a scene in a theatre!"

But Fiscal McMath, who was infinitely the stronger man of the two in
character and conduct, turned upon him with a kind of snarl.

"Don't sink the ship for the extra happorth of tar, skipper," he said,
in a low voice (which, however, sitting near, I could just catch),
"give them rope--give them rope! We have been a long time at the job
without hanging them!"

At this the sheriff was silent, only motioning Mr. Ablethorpe to give
the papers to Mr. McMath.

Our fiscal, next to my father the best-known man in the county, was a
greyish, grave man with twinkling eyes, mutton-chop side whiskers, a
little, sly, tip-titled nose, with a dry bloom on the top of it, as if
he liked his spirits neat. He never smiled, yet he was always smiling.
His mouth, when about his duties, would be grave as that of
Rhadamanthus, while within an inch of it a wrinkle twitched merrily
away. His eyes could reprove a too light-hearted witness, or frown
down an improperly jovial defendant, all the while that a
mischief-loving sprite, hovering within, held his sides at the
unseasonable jesting.

On this occasion, however, it was gravely enough that Mr. McMath
adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles and proceeded to read.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE WITNESSING OF MISER HOBBY

"_The Witnessing and last statement of Me, Howard Stennis, sometime
weaver to my trade, afterwards laird of the lands of 'Deep Moat
Grange,' near Breckonside--to which is added my last Will in my own
handwriting_.

"I, HOWARD STENNIS, being of sound mind, and desiring that after my
death nothing should be left uncertain, have decided to put on record
all that has occurred. This I do, not in the least to exculpate
myself, because what I have done, I have done