where about ten o'clock of that
night. Then Amos Gregory, just finishing his nightcap and knocking out his
pipe to go to bed, much to his astonishment heard somebody banging on the
front door of Furze Hill. Guessing it was some night-foundered tramp, he
cussed the wanderer to hell; but cussing was only an ornament in his
speech, for a tenderer creature really never lived, and he wouldn't have
turned a stray cat from his door that fierce night, let alone a human.

It weren't no tramp, however; it proved to be his nephew Ernest, and the
young man was clad in his oilskins and dripping with the storm rain and so
frightened as a rabbit.

In a word, he'd been to Ashburton and waited for the appointed train, only
to find his uncle hadn't come back by it. And so he bided, till the last
train of all, and still Joe hadn't turned up. So Ernest drove home, hoping
to find a telegram had come meanwhile and been brought up from Merripit
post office. But there weren't no telegram; and now he was properly feared
and had come over to Amos to know what did ought to be done.

First thing to do, in the opinion of Amos, was to pour a good dollop of
gin down Ernest's neck; then, when the shaking chap had got a bit of fight
in him, he explained that till the morn they were powerless to take
action.

"I know his lawyer, because Cousins and Slark be my lawyers also," said
Amos; "and they always was the family men of business, so if us hear
nought when the post office opens to-morrow, we'll send off a telegram to
them; and if they've got nothing to say, then we must tell the police."

Ernest was a good bit down-daunted and said he felt cruel sure evil had
over-got his uncle, and Amos didn't like it neither, for a more orderly
man than Joe Gregory and one more steadfast in doing what he promised
couldn't easily be found. However, they had to suffer till morning, and
Ernest went back to Vitifer, which stood not quarter of a mile away.

Morning brought no letter nor yet telegram, so Amos went down to Merripit
post office and sent a wire off to the Exeter lawyers axing for news of
his brother; and he waited till an answer came down. It ran like this:

_Mr. Gregory spent an hour with us yesterday and left at four o'clock to
catch down train._

_Cousins and Slark._

Well, that showed there was something wrong, and Amos felt he was up
against it. He never let the grass grow under his feet, a