turbed, for, as he was walking from his
chambers in Lincoln's Inn to a favourite tavern in the Strand, he
imagined that he was followed by an ungainly looking man. He tried to
avoid him, but the man followed on, and after a time, fully convinced
that he was dogged by this man, he demanded "Who he was, and why he
followed him?"

[Illustration: THE FIGURE STOOD MOTIONLESS.]

But the man replied, "I am not following you; I'm following my own
business."

By no means satisfied, young Perceval crossed over to the opposite
side of the street, but the man followed him step by step, and before
many minutes had elapsed he was joined by another man as
ungainly-looking as himself. Perceval, no longer doubting that he was
followed, called upon the two men to retire at their peril, and
although he succeeded in making them take to their heels after a sharp
sword skirmish, he was himself wounded in the leg, and made his way to
the nearest tavern. This unpleasant encounter, reviving the memory of
the ghastly figure he had seen in his chambers, made him feel that he
was a doomed man, and he was not far wrong, for that night near the
so-called May-pole in the Strand he was found dead--but how he died
was a secret never divulged.

Another equally strange incident connected with this mysterious crime
happened to a Mrs. Brown, "perhaps from her holding some situation in
the family of his uncle, Sir Robert." On this fatal night, writes Sir
Bernard Burke, she dreamt that one Mrs. Shearman--the housekeeper--came
to her and asked for a sheet.

She demanded, "for what purpose," to which Mrs. Shearman replied,
"Poor Master Robert is killed, and it is to wind him in."

Curious to say, in the morning Mrs. Shearman came at an early hour
into her room, and asked for a sheet. For what purpose? inquired Mrs
Brown.

"Poor Mr. Robert is murdered," was the reply; "he lies dead in the
Strand watch-house, and it is to wind his body in."

In the year 1848, the Warwick magistrates investigated a most
extraordinary and preposterous charge of murder against Lord Leigh,
his deceased mother, and persons employed by them, in the course of
which inquiry one of the accusers professed to have been in possession
of a secret connected with the matter for a number of years. The
accusation seems to have originated from the attempt of certain
parties to seize Stoneleigh Abbey on pretence that it rightfully
belonged to them, and not to Lord Leigh. In November, 18