"But why does he not apply to the magistrates for protection?" I asked.
"If he is afraid of any one, he has only to name him and they will bind
him over to keep the peace."

"My dear West," said young Heatherstone, "the danger with which
my father is threatened is one that cannot be averted by any human
intervention. It is none the less very real, and possibly very
imminent."

"You don't mean to assert that it is supernatural," I said
incredulously.

"Well, hardly that, either," he answered with hesitation. "There," he
continued, "I have said rather more than I should, but I know that you
will not abuse my confidence. Good-bye!"

He look to his heels and was soon out of sight round a curve in the
country road.

A danger which was real and imminent, not to be averted by human means,
and yet hardly supernatural--here was a conundrum indeed!

I had come to look upon the inhabitants of the Hall as mere eccentrics,
but after what young Mordaunt Heatherstone had just told me, I could
no longer doubt that some dark and sinister meaning underlay all their
actions. The more I pondered over the problem, the more unanswerable did
it appear, and yet I could not get the matter out of my thoughts.

The lonely, isolated Hall, and the strange, impending catastrophe which
hung over its inmates, appealed forcibly to my imagination. All that
evening, and late into the night, I sat moodily by the fire, pondering
over what I had heard, and revolving in my mind the various incidents
which might furnish me with some clue to the mystery.

CHAPTER V. HOW FOUR OF US CAME TO BE UNDER THE SHADOW OF CLOOMBER

I trust that my readers will not set me down as an inquisitive busybody
when I say that as the days and weeks went by I found my attention and
my thoughts more and more attracted to General Heatherstone and the
mystery which surrounded him.

It was in vain that I endeavoured by hard work and a strict attention to
the laird's affairs to direct my mind into some more healthy channel.
Do what I would, on land or on the water, I would still find myself
puzzling over this one question, until it obtained such a hold upon me
that I felt it was useless for me to attempt to apply myself to anything
until I had come to some satisfactory solution of it.

I could never pass the dark line of five-foot fencing, and the great
iron gate, with its massive lock, without pausing and racking my brain
as to what the secret might be which was sh