him
is a very clear one. He had met you twice, and felt interest in you as
a future member of our family. You had never invited him to the castle;
and the last intention he expressed in my hearing was to call upon you
without one. Has he met with an accident in your cellars? Or have your
dogs devoured him? He carried a good deal of flesh, in spite of all he
could do to the contrary; and any man naturally might endeavour to hush
up such an incident. Tell me the truth, Caryl. And we will try to meet
it."

"My two dogs (who would never eat any one, though they might pull down
a stranger, and perhaps pretend to bite him) arrived here the first week
in January. When did Charleygoes disappear? I am not up in dates, but it
must have been weeks and weeks before that time. And I must have heard
of it, if it had happened. I may give you my honour that Orso and Leo
have not eaten Charleygoes."

"You speak too lightly of a man in high position, who would have been
Lord Mayor of London, if he had never come to Springhaven. But living
or dead, he shall never be that now. Can you answer me, in the same
straightforward manner, as to an accident in your cellars; which, as a
gentleman upon a private tour, he had clearly no right to intrude upon?"

"I can answer you quite as clearly. Nothing accidental has happened in
my cellars. You may come and see them, if you have any doubt about it.
And you need not apply for a search-warrant."

"God forbid, my dear fellow," cried the uncle, "that I should intrude
upon any little matters of delicacy, such as are apt to arise between
artificial laws and gentlemen who happen to live near the sea, and to
have large places that require restoring! I shall go home with a
lighter heart. There is nothing in this world that brings the comfort of
straightforwardness."

CHAPTER LIII

TIME AND PLACE

In a matter like that French invasion, which had been threatened for
such a time, and kept so long impending, "the cry of wolf" grows stale
at last, and then the real danger comes. Napoleon had reckoned upon
this, as he always did upon everything, and for that good reason he had
not grudged the time devoted to his home affairs. These being settled
according to his will, and mob turned into pomp as gaily as grub turns
into butterfly, a strong desire for a little more glory arose in his
mighty but ill-regulated mind. If he could only conquer England, or even
without that fetch her down on her knees and