happen to have shown his face at all during the day, sinks more sullenly than anywhere else, as though disgusted with the prospect, and glad to get to bed; there, the few travellers who have been so unwise, or so unfortunate, as to be left out of doors, are surly in consequence, and give but grudging greeting to any one they meet.

On just such an evening as this a solitary man, muffled to the eyes, fought a desperate battle with the various winds, something to his own discomfiture, and very much to the ruffling of his temper, on the way to the small village of Bamberton. The railway leaves off suddenly, some six miles from Bamberton, and the man who would visit that interesting spot must perforce pay for a fly at the Railway Inn, if he desire to enter the place with any ostentation, or must walk.

In the case of this particular man, he desired, for purposes of his own, to attract as little notice as possible; and was, therefore, tramping through the mud and a drizzling rain, as cheerfully as might be. He was a tall, well-built man, of about eight-and-twenty years of age; with strong, well-defined features, rendered the more so by the fact that his face was cleanly shaven; possibly from having led a solitary life, he had a habit of communing with himself.

“A cheery welcome, this, to one’s native land—to one’s native place!” he muttered, bending his head, as a fresh gust of wind and rain drove at him. “Why—if the devil himself were in league against me, and had made up his mind to oppose my coming, he couldn’t fight harder than this! ’Pon my word, it almost looks like a bad omen for you, Philip Crowdy—a devilish bad omen!”

Despite the wind and the rain and the gathering night, however, the man presently seated himself on a stone, near the roadside, and within sight of the twinkling lights of the village, as though he has something weighty on his mind, which must be thrashed out before he could proceed to his destination. Despite the wind and the rain, too, he took the matter quite good-humouredly, in putting a suppositious case to himself—even doing it with some jocularity.

“Now Phil, my boy—you’ve got to be very careful. There’s no getting away from the fact that you are not wanted—and you certainly will not be welcome. The likeness is all right; I’ve seen a picture of the respected Dandy Chater—and there’s nothing to be feared, from that point of view. The only thing is, that I must feel my way, and know exactly what I am doing. And, for the moment, darkness suits me better than daylight. My first business is to get as near to Dandy 

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