lothes and the watch clearly enough,
and said he had no doubt that the other remains were Peregrine's;
but as to swearing to a brother's bones, no one could do that; and
Dr. Yonge said in my ear that if the deceased were so small a man as
folks said, the skeleton could scarce be his, for he thought it had
belonged to a large-framed person. That struck no one else, for
naturally it is only a chirurgeon who is used to reckon the
proportion that the bones bear to the body, and I also asked him
whether in seven years the other parts would be so entirely
consumed, to which he answered that so much would depend on the
nature of the soil that there was no telling. However, jury and
coroner seemed to feel no doubt, and that old seafaring man, Tom
Block, declared that poor Master Peregrine had been hand and glove
with a lot of wild chaps, and that the vault had been well known to
them before the gentlemen had had it blocked up. Then it was asked
who had seen him last, and Robert Oakshott spoke of having parted
with him at the bonfire, and never seen him again. There, I fancy,
it would have ended in a verdict of wilful murder against some
person or persons unknown, but Robert Oakshott must needs say, "I
would give a hundred pounds to know who the villain was." And then
who should get up but George Rackstone, with "Please your Honour, I
could tell summat." The coroner bade swear him, and he deposed to
having seen Master Peregrine going down towards the castle somewhere
about four o'clock that morning after the bonfire when he was
getting up to go to his mowing. But that was not all. You
remember, Anne, that his father's cottage stands on the road towards
Portsmouth. Well, he brought up the story of your running in there,
frightened, the day before the bonfire, when I was praying with his
sick mother, calling on me to stop a fray between Peregrine and
young Sedley, and I had to get up and tell of Sedley's rudeness to
you, child."

"What was that?" hastily asked Lady Archfield.

"The old story, my lady. The young officer's swaggering attempt to
kiss the girl he meets on the road. I doubt even if he knew at the
moment that it was my niece. Peregrine was coming by at the moment,
and interfered to protect her, and swords were drawn. I could not
deny it, nor that there was ill blood between the lads; and then
young Brocas, who was later on Portsdown than we were, remembered
high words, and had thought to himself that the