thing of the kind, and Sir Stafford was seized with the gout, and so
they 've put back, glad even to make such a port as Baden."

"If it's the gout's the matter with him," said Dalton, "I 've the finest
receipt in the world. Take a pint of spirits poteen if you can get it
beat up two eggs and a pat of butter in it; throw in a clove of garlic
and a few scrapings of horseradish, let it simmer over the fire for a
minute or two, stir it with a sprig of rosemary to give it a flavor, and
then drink it off."

"Gracious Heaven! what a dose!" exclaimed Jekyl, in horror.

"Well, then, I never knew it fail. My father took it for forty years,
and there wasn't a haler man in the country. If it was n't that he gave
up the horseradish for he did n't like the taste of it he 'd, maybe, be
alive at this hour."

"The cure was rather slow of operation," said Haggerstone, with a sneer.

"'Twas only the more like all remedies for Irish grievances, then,"
observed Dal ton, and his face grew a shade graver as he spoke.

"Who was it this Onslow married?" said the Colonel, turning to Jekyl.

"One of the Headworths, I think."

"Ah, to be sure; Lady Hester. She was a handsome woman when I saw
her first, but she fell off sadly; and indeed, if she had not, she 'd
scarcely have condescended to an alliance with a man in trade, even
though he were Sir Gilbert Stafford."

"Sir Gilbert Stafford!" repeated Dalton.

"Yes, sir; and now Sir Gilbert Stafford Onslow. He took the name from
that estate in Warwickshire; Skepton Park, I believe they call it."

"By my conscience, I wish that was the only thing he took," ejaculated
Dalton, with a degree of fervor that astonished the others, "for he
took an elegant estate that belonged by right to my wife. Maybe you have
heard tell of Corrig-O'Neal?"

Haggerstone shook his head, while with his elbow he nudged his
companion, to intimate his total disbelief in the whole narrative.

"Surely you must have heard of the murder of Arthur Godfrey, of
Corrig-O'Neal; was n't the whole world ringing with it?"

Another negative sign answered this appeal.

"Well, well, that beats all ever I heard! but so it is, sorrow bit they
care in England if we all murdered each other! Arthur Godfrey, as I was
saying, was my wife's brother, there were just the two of them, Arthur
and Jane; she was my wife."

"Ah! here they come!" exclaimed Jekyl, not sorry for the event which so
opportunely interrupted Dalton's unpromising h