friend's arrest when the Prince's cause was lost. His wife, she
poisoned herself. Those are the spurs Mad Harry rode Hellfire on a
wager down Crosbie Ghyll with, and broke his neck doing it, besides his
young wife's heart. The women who married the Thurstons had an ill lot
to grapple with. Even when they settled down to farming, the Thurstons
were men who would walk unflinchingly into ruin sooner than lose their
grip on their purpose, and Mr. Geoffrey favors them."

"They must have been just lovely," sighed Mrs. Savine. "Say, I've
taken a fancy to some of those old things. That rusty iron lamp can't
be much use to anybody, but it's quaint, and I'd give it's weight in
dollars for it. Can't you tell me where Mr. Forsyth lives?"

Musker stared at her horrified, Thomas Savine laughed, and even Helen,
who had appeared unusually thoughtful, smiled. Musker answered:

"No money could buy one of them out of the family, and if any but a
Thurston moves that lamp from where it hangs the dead men rise and come
for it when midnight strikes. It is falling to pieces, but once when
they took it to Kendal to be mended, the smith sent a man back with it
on horseback before the day had broken."

There was a few moments' silence when Musker concluded, and the ancient
weapons glinted strangely as the lamp's flame wavered in the chilling
draughts. A gale from the Irish Sea boomed about the crumbling tower,
and all the lonely mosses seemed to swell it with their moaning. Helen
shivered as she listened, for those clamorous voices of wind and rain
carried her back in fancy to the old unhappy days of bloodshed and
foray. The associations of the place oppressed her. She had acquired
a horror of those grim dead men whose mementos hung above her, and
whose spirits might well wander on such a night vainly seeking rest.
Even Mrs. Savine became subdued, and her husband said:

"We can't tell tales like these in our country, and I'm thankful we
can't. Still, I daresay it was such men as these who bred in us the
grit to chase the whales in the Arctic, build our railroads through the
snow-barred passes, and master the primeval forest. Now we'll try to
forget them, and go back out of this creepy place to the fire again."

An hour later Mrs. Musker escorted Helen to her quarters. A bright
fire glowed in the rusty grate, and two candles burned on the
dressing-table. "It's Mrs. Forsyth's own room, and the best in the
house," the old care