e of the masons that
set up the stone slab. Before then it was thick glass, and you could see
the dead man lying inside, as he'd left it in his will. He was lying
there in a glass coffin with his best clothes--blue satin and silver, my
uncle said, such as was all the go in his day, with his wig on, and his
sword beside him, what he used to wear. My uncle said his hair had grown
out from under his wig, and his beard was down to the toes of him. My
uncle he always upheld that that dead man was no deader than you and me,
but was in a sort of fit, a transit, I think they call it, and looked
for him to waken into life again some day. But the doctor said not. It
was only something done to him like Pharaoh in the Bible afore he was
buried."

Alice whispered to Oswald that we should be late for tea, and wouldn't
it be better to go back now directly. But he said:

"If you're afraid, say so; and you needn't come in anyway--but I'm going
on."

The man who was going for the pig put us down at a gate quite near the
tower--at least it looked so until we began to walk again. We thanked
him, and he said:

"Quite welcome," and drove off.

We were rather quiet going through the wood. What we had heard made us
very anxious to see the tower--all except Alice, who would keep talking
about tea, though not a greedy girl by nature. None of the others
encouraged her, but Oswald thought himself that we had better be home
before dark.

As we went up the path through the wood we saw a poor wayfarer with
dusty bare feet sitting on the bank.

He stopped us and said he was a sailor, and asked for a trifle to help
him to get back to his ship.

I did not like the look of him much myself, but Alice said, "Oh, the
poor man, do let's help him, Oswald." So we held a hurried council, and
decided to give him the milk sixpence. Oswald had it in his purse, and
he had to empty the purse into his hand to find the sixpence, for that
was not all the money he had, by any means. Noel said afterwards that he
saw the wayfarer's eyes fastened greedily upon the shining pieces as
Oswald returned them to his purse. Oswald has to own that he purposely
let the man see that he had more money, so that the man might not feel
shy about accepting so large a sum as sixpence.

The man blessed our kind hearts and we went on.

The sun was shining very brightly, and the Tower of Mystery did not look
at all like a tomb when we got to it. The bottom story was on arches,
a