rue I've heard," cried old Jack Amerald.
"Didn't he drown a woman and her child in the lake?"

"Hollo! my dear boy, don't let them hear you say that; you're all in the
clouds."

"By Jen!" exclaimed the landlord after an alarmed silence, with his
mouth and eyes open, and his pipe in his hand, "why, sir, I pay rent for
the house up there. I'm thankful--dear knows, I _am_ thankful--we're all
to ourselves!"

Jack Amerald put his foot on the floor, leaving his wooden leg in its
horizontal position, and looked round a little curiously.

"Well, if it wasn't him, it was some one else. I'm sure it happened up
at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to
Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here--down to
the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very
spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I'd take my oath, where the
body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was
queer, you know, so I clapt it down in my log."

"Ay, sir, there _was_ some flummery like that, Captain," said Turnbull;
"for folk will be gabbin'. But 'twas his grandsire was talked o', not
him; and 'twould play the hangment wi' me doun here, if 'twas thought
there was stories like that passin' in the George and Dragon.'

"Well, his grandfather; 'twas all one to him, I take it."

"There never was no proof, Captain, no more than smoke; and the family
up at Mardykes wouldn't allow the king to talk o' them like that, sir;
for though they be lang deod that had most right to be angered in the
matter, there's none o' the name but would be half daft to think 'twas
still believed, and he full out as mich as any. Not that I need care
more than another, though they do say he's a bit frowsy and
short-waisted; for he can't shouther me out o' the George while I pay my
rent, till nine hundred and ninety-nine year be rin oot; and a man, be
he ne'er sa het, has time to cool before then. But there's no good
quarrellin' wi' teathy folk; and it may lie in his way to do the George
mony an ill turn, and mony a gude one; an' it's only fair to say it
happened a long way before he was born, and there's no good in vexin'
him; and I lay ye a pound, Captain, the Doctor hods wi' me."

The Doctor, whose business was also sensitive, nodded; and then he said,
"But for all that, the story's old, Dick Turnbull--older than you or I,
my jolly good friend."

"And best forgotten," interposed the host