among some poaching fellars, made with a bird-call, or the like of that."

"Supposing it said any word at all, Dick, what word was it most like?"

Mr. Richard Westlock looked as nonplused and embarrassed as though I had propounded to him some extremely complicated riddle.

"Was it anything like 'Hel—p, hel—p?'" said I, imitating as well as I could those terrible tones.

"Bless my body," quoth Mr. Richard, slapping his legs with his hands, in admiration of my sagacity, "if them ain't the very words as it did say!"

"What think you of that, Oliver Bradford?" inquired I, gravely.

"As the bell tinks, so the fool thinks," responded the head keeper, sententiously. "If you had asked Dick whether the word wasn't 'Jerusalem,' he would have said, 'Ay, that was the very word.'"

"Still," urged I, "since there may be something more than fancy in the thing, and the voice, if it was one, could not have come from under water, let the Park woods be thoroughly searched at once. There are men enough outside the gates to do that, without suspending the work that is going on here, and why should we lose time?"

The head keeper sulkily muttered something about not wanting a caddel of people poking their noses into every part of Fairburn Chase; then with earnest distinctness, as though the thought had only just struck him, "Besides, Mr. Meredith, let me tell you that they may get to know more than is good for them."

At these words, I cast an involuntary glance at the plantation within a few hundred feet of us, in the recesses of which dwelt Sinnamenta, Lady Heath.

"You may know, sir," continued the keeper, translating my thought, "but everybody don't know, and it's much better that they shouldn't."

Certainly the objection was a grave one, and I was glad enough to perceive Mr. Long coming down from the Hall towards us, an authority by whom the question could be decided.

"You had better ask him yourself, Oliver," said I; for as my tutor had never spoken to me of the existence of the unfortunate maniac, I did not like to address him upon the subject. Bradford therefore went forward to meet him; and after they had had some talk together, Mr. Long beckoned me to him.

"I 

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