ounging across the quay from the shadow of one of the
neighbouring cottages. He touched his cap to Marston Greyle, and looked
inquiringly at the two strangers.

"Are you the gentlemen as is asking after another gentleman?" he said.
"'Cause if so, I make no doubt as how I had a word or two with him
yesterday afternoon."

Stafford and Copplestone turned sharply on the newcomer--an elderly
man of plain and homely aspect who responded frankly to their
questioning glances. He went on at once, before they could put their
questions into words.

"It 'ud be about half-past two, or maybe a bit nearer three o'clock," he
said. "Up yonder it was, about a hundred yards this side of the
'Admiral's Arms.' I was sitting on a baulk o' timber there, doing
nothing, when he comes along--a tall, fine-looking man. He gives me a
pleasant sort o' nod, and said it was a grand day, and we got talking a
bit, about the scenery and such-like, and he said he'd never been here
before. Then he pointed up to the big house and the old Keep yonder, and
asked whose place that might be, and I said that was the Squire's. 'And
who may the Squire be?' says he. 'Mr. Marston Greyle,' says I, 'Recent
come into the property.' 'Marston Greyle!' he says, sharp-like. 'Why, I
used to know a young man of that very name in America!' he says. 'Very
like,' says I, 'I have heard as how the Squire had been in them parts
before he came here.' 'Bless me!' he says, 'I've a good mind to call on
him. How do you get up there?' he says. So I showed him that side path
that runs up through the plantation to near the top, and I told him that
if he followed that till he came to the Keep, he'd find another path
there as would take him to the door of the house. And he gave me a
shilling to drink his health, and off he went, the way as I'd pointed
out. D'ye think that'll be the same gentleman, now?"

Nobody answered this question. Everybody there was looking at Marston
Greyle. The little group had drawn near to the light of one of the three
gas-lamps which feebly illuminated the quay; it seemed to Copplestone
that the Squire's face had paled when the fisherman arrived at the middle
of his story. But it flushed as his companion turned to him, and he
laughed, a little uneasily.

"Said he knew me--in America?" he exclaimed. "I don't remember meeting
Mr. Bassett Oliver out there. But then I met so many Englishmen in one
place or another that I may have been introduced to him somewhere,