Zach laid his heavy hand upon Gregory's shoulder, and forced him back into his seat.

Mr. Thorogood and his party left the Grove, and found, upon their return to the Lodge, that the fright, her wound, and the excitement of the whole affair, had caused Mrs. Thorogood to be prematurely confined. The child was born dead, and the mother's life was in jeopardy for some months; but the kindness of Mrs. Poore, and the skill of her husband, Andrew, at length restored her to her family and friends.

Mr. Thorogood consulted with his neighbours and brother justices, on the morning following the events we have recorded, on the propriety of arresting or summoning Gregory upon suspicion of being the person who shot at him; but, as the only testimony of the fact that could be adduced was the full persuasion and conviction of Will Souter that the voice he heard at the gate was the voice of Gregory, and Coldblood and the servants at the Grove were ready to swear that he had not left the Grove after dark, it was thought advisable not to proceed in the affair, but to wait until something more should transpire.

No additional evidence was procured, and Mr. Gregory Griskin sent Zachary every day up to the Lodge to inquire after the health of Mrs. Thorogood. The answer that she was daily mending was received with an awful oath, expressive of the bitterest disappointment.

One morning, to the great relief of the owner, the messenger from the Grove did not make his accustomed appearance at the Lodge. In the evening of the same day, Will Souter, who was returning from the farm, after having seen the horses properly littered and fed, and the barns and stables securely fastened, was surprised at hearing the groans as of a person in pain, proceeding from a hovel in which horses, turned into the neighbouring paddock, were provided with shelter and food. He approached the place, and on looking in saw what appeared to him, at first, a bundle of old rags. On examination, it proved to be the body of a woman with her clothes torn nearly from her person.

The evening was already too dark to enable him to distinguish her features, but his innate humanity induced him to convey her, whoever

she might be, to the nearest place whence succour might be procured. This was at the keeper's house, which was situated near a small cover in the field next to the one in which the hovel was built.

He with great difficulty carried her thither; for the body was nearly stiff and cold, though groans at intervals issued from it. On gaining the cottage, both he and the keeper immediately recognized, in the wretched object before them, the person of the housekeeper at the Grove.

Mr. Thorogood was informed of the circumstance, and sent immediately for Andrew Poore ; but before he arrived the poor creature was dead.

A messenger was despatched to the Grove, who quickly returned to say that the house was closed, bills up in the windows, and others posted on the outer gates, announcing that it was to let, furnished or unfurnished. Parties were requested to make application to Mr. Callus Coldblood, solicitor, Buyemup. That gentleman's reply to Mr. Thorogood's question, when he called upon him the following day, as to where

Gregory was gone, was

that he was gone

abroad for his health; and, as to what he was to attribute the death of the housekeeper, that “he neither knew nor cared, but supposed, upon receiving her wages the day before, she had got intoxicated, and had, perhaps, been robbed, and died of excessive cold." An inquest was held, and, from want of evidence as to the real cause of death, a verdict was returned of "found dead."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE LIEUTENANT'S TALE.

Two years elapsed, and the Grove remained untenanted, except by an aged woman, of notoriously bad character, whom Mr. Callus Coldblood had put into the house to keep it clean and well-aired. The horses and dogs disappeared a few days after Gregory left the neighbourhood. As they were removed in the nighttime, no one knew what became of them, or in which direction they were taken; though it was reported that they had been seen, by some fishermen of Seatown, going down the lane which led from the Grove, and by the Lodge, to a small river or creek which was nearly dry at low water, except in the centre of its channel. At high water it was navigable for small craft, which