of the Lord and of Gideon," answered the Muggletonian.

A bar fell from the door, and it swung slowly inwards.

"Enter, friends," said a quiet voice. Landless, stooping his head,
crossed the threshold, and found himself in the presence of a man with a
high, white forehead and a grave, sweet face, who, leaning on a stick,
and dragging one foot behind him, limped back to the settle from which
he had risen, and fell to work upon a broken net as calmly as if he were
alone. Besides themselves he was the only inmate of the room.

A pine torch, stuck into a cleft in the table, cast a red and
flickering light over a rude interior, furnished with the table, the
settle, a chest and a straw pallet. From the walls and rafters hung
nets, torn or mended. In one corner was a great heap of dingy sail, in
another a sheaf of oars, and a third was wholly in darkness. Lying about
the earthen floor were several small casks to which the man motioned as
seats.

Leaving Landless near the door, Win-Grace Porringer dragged a keg to the
side of the settle, and sitting down upon it, approached his death mask
of a face close to the face of the mender of nets, and commenced a
whispered conversation. To Landless, awaiting rather listlessly the
outcome of this nocturnal adventure, came now and then a broken
sentence. "He hath not the look of a criminal, but--" "Of Puritan
breeding, sayest thou?" "We need young blood." Then after prolonged
whispering, "No traitor, at least."

At length the Muggletonian arose and came towards Landless. "My friend
would speak with you alone," he said, "I will stand guard outside." He
went out, closing the door behind him.

The mender of nets beckoned Landless. "Will you come nearer?" he asked
in a quiet refined voice that was not without a ring of power. "As you
see, I am lame, and I cannot move without pain."

Landless came and sat down beside the table, resting his elbow upon the
wood, and his chin upon his hand. The mender of nets put down his work,
and the two measured each other in silence.

Landless saw a man of middle age who looked like a scholar, but who
might have been a soldier; a man with a certain strong, bright sweetness
of look in a spare, worn face, and underlying the sweetness a still and
deadly determination. The mender of nets saw, in his turn, a figure
lithe and straight as an Indian's, a well-poised head, and a handsome
face set in one fixed expression of proud endurance. A determined face,