ocal society, but he was both a dull and
a cautious man, and had very little to tell me. He had himself seen
nothing, he only had Beckwith's word to go upon and did not feel
certain that the whole affair was not an hallucination on the young
man's part. That the child had disappeared was certain, that both
parents were equally distressed is certain. Not a shred of suspicion
attached to the unhappy Beckwith. But Mr. Walsh told me that he felt
the loss so keenly and blamed himself so severely, though
unreasonably, to my thinking, that it would have been impossible for
him to remain in England. He said that the full statement communicated
to the Field Club was considered by the young man in the light of a
confession of his share in the tragedy. It would, he said, have been
exorbitant to expect more of him. And I quite agree with him; and now
had better give the story as I found it.

BECKWITH'S CASE

The facts were as follows. Mr. Stephen Mortimer Beckwith was a young
man living at Wishford in the Amesbury district of Wiltshire. He was a
clerk in the Wilts and Dorset Bank at Salisbury, was married and had
one child. His age at the time of the experience here related was
twenty-eight. His health was excellent.

On the 30th November, 1887, at about ten o'clock at night, he was
returning home from Amesbury where he had been spending the evening at
a friend's house. The weather was mild, with a rain-bearing wind
blowing in squalls from the south-west. It was three-quarter moon that
night, and although the sky was frequently overcast it was at no time
dark. Mr. Beckwith, who was riding a bicycle and accompanied by his
fox-terrier Strap, states that he had no difficulty in seeing and
avoiding the stones cast down at intervals by the road-menders; that
flocks of sheep in the hollows were very visible, and that, passing
Wilsford House, he saw a barn owl quite plainly and remarked its
heavy, uneven flight.

A mile beyond Wilsford House, Strap, the dog, broke through the
quick-set hedge upon his right-hand side and ran yelping up the down,
which rises sharply just there. Mr. Beckwith, who imagined that he was
after a hare, whistled him in, presently calling him sharply, "Strap,
Strap, come out of it." The dog took no notice, but ran directly to a
clump of gorse and bramble half-way up the down, and stood there in
the attitude of a pointer, with uplifted paw, watching the gorse
intently, and whining. Mr. Beckwith was by t