eard the sound of footsteps. Next moment, before I had time
to give warning, Jacob Lancey came round the corner of the stables with
a pitchfork on his shoulder, and walked right into the fortress. He set
his foot on the principal gateway, tripped over the ramparts, and
falling headlong into the citadel, laid its banner in the dust. At the
same instant there came a terrific flash and crash, and from the midst
of smoke and flames, the groom appeared to shoot into the air!

With feelings of horror I sprang to the rescue and dragged the poor
fellow from the smoking debris. He was stunned at first, but soon
recovered, and then it was found that one of the fingers of his left
hand had been completely blown off. Words cannot describe my feelings.
I felt as if I had become next thing to a murderer. Lancey was a tall
powerful man of about thirty, and not easily killed. He had received no
other injury worth mentioning. Although the most faithful of servants,
he was irascible, and I anticipated an explosion of temper when he
recovered sufficiently to understand the nature of his injury, but I was
mistaken. The blowing-up seemed to have quite cured his temper--at
least as regarded myself, for when I afterwards went to see him, with a
very penitent face, he took my hand and said--

"Don't take on so, Master Jeffry. You didn't do it a purpus, you know,
and, after all, it's on'y the little finger o' the left hand. It'll be
rather hout o' the way than otherwise. Moreover, I was used to make a
baccy stopper o' that finger, an' it strikes me that the stump'll fit
the pipe better than the pint did, besides bein' less sensitive to fire,
who knows? Any'ow, Master Jeffry, you've got no occasion to grieve over
it so."

I felt a little comforted when the good fellow spoke thus, but I could
not forgive myself. For some time after that I quite gave up my
chemical and other experiments, and when I did ultimately resume them, I
went to work with extreme caution.

Not long after this event I went to college, and studied medicine. My
course was nearly completed when my dear father died. He had earnestly
desired that I should enter the medical profession. I therefore
resolved to finish my course, although, being left in possession of a
small estate named Fagend, in Devonshire, and an ample income, it was
not requisite that I should practise for a livelihood.

One morning, a considerable time after my studies were completed, I sat