ld you care to assist me
in my task, nephew, I shall be greatly indebted to you.'

I very readily volunteered my services, for I had been profoundly
interested in the cause of my uncle's abstraction from the first, and
the mysterious apparition had enhanced my curiosity.

So the three of us set to work with hammers and chisels, and in the
course of a few hours' work we had proved to my uncle's satisfaction
that his intuition had been correct in that we found the remains of a
human body interred within the hollow of the walls; _yet 'twas not the
corpse of a woman, as he had surmised, but that of a young man_.

IN THE CLIFF LAND OF THE DANE

A LETTER TO THE REVEREND LAURENCE STERNE AT COXWOLD FROM JOHN HALL
STEVENSON AT SKELTON CASTLE, AS SET DOWN BY HIS NEPHEW FREDDY HALL.

The truth is, reverend sir, that being eventually designed for the Bar,
I had taken up this quest with an additional vigour, for here was a
mystery wherein my Lord Chief-Justice himself would have had a
difficulty in seeing the proper clue on 't.

For some months previous to my sojourn at Skelton Castle there had been
mysterious midnight thefts of sheep, heifers, and suchlike cattle on the
hills about here, Redcar, and Danby-way, and even on occasion a murder
added, as in the case of poor Jack Moscrop, the shepherd, who was found
in the early morning with his head cut in twain, as though by some
mighty cleaver, stark dead and cold on the low-lying ground beyond
Kirkleatham.

Much disquietude had been caused thereby amongst the farmer folk, and
the whole countryside was agape with excitement and conjecture, but
nothing had been discovered as to the malefactor, though many tales were
told, more especially by the womenfolk, who put down all mishaps to the
same unknown agent.

Some said 'twas a black man who had escaped off a foreign ship that had
been stranded by Teesmouth, but in that case one would imagine that such
an one would have eaten his victim raw, whereas the sheep and heifers
that were killed had always been 'gralloched,' as the Scotch term it,
that is, had been cut open with a knife and disembowelled, and the
carcases removed.

Some again avowed 'twas an agent of the Prince of Darkness, for there
were hoofmarks of an unshod horse discovered on one or two occasions
leading up and away from the scene of the slaughter, and blood drops
alongside, as though the booty had been slung from the horse's quarters,
and there dripped do