high-backed chairs on
either side of the empty fireplace when we arrived, he smoking his
evening pipe of Oronooko, and she working at her embroidery. The moment
that I opened the door the man whom I had brought stepped briskly in,
and bowing to the old people began to make glib excuses for the lateness
of his visit, and to explain the manner in which we had picked him up. I
could not help smiling at the utter amazement expressed upon my mother's
face as she gazed at him, for the loss of his jack-boots exposed a pair
of interminable spindle-shanks which were in ludicrous contrast to the
baggy low country knee-breeches which surmounted them. His tunic was
made of coarse sad-coloured kersey stuff with flat new gilded brass
buttons, beneath which was a whitish callamanca vest edged with silver.
Round the neck of his coat was a broad white collar after the Dutch
fashion, out of which his long scraggy throat shot upwards with his
round head and bristle of hair balanced upon the top of it, like the
turnip on a stick at which we used to throw at the fairs. In this guise
he stood blinking and winking in the glare of light, and pattering out
his excuses with as many bows and scrapes as Sir Peter Witling in the
play. I was in the act of following him into the room, when Reuben
plucked at my sleeve to detain me.

'Nay, I won't come in with you, Micah,' said he; 'there's mischief
likely to come of all this. My father may grumble over his beer jugs,
but he's a Churchman and a Tantivy for all that. I'd best keep out of
it.'

'You are right,' I answered. 'There is no need for you to meddle in the
business. Be mum as to all that you have heard.'

'Mum as a mouse,' said he, and pressing my hand turned away into the
darkness. When I returned to the sitting-room I found that my mother had
hurried into the kitchen, where the crackling of sticks showed that she
was busy in building a fire. Decimus Saxon was seated at the edge of
the iron-bound oak chest at the side of my father, and was watching him
keenly with his little twinkling eyes, while the old man was fixing
his horn glasses and breaking the seals of the packet which his strange
visitor had just handed to him.

I saw that when my father looked at the signature at the end of the
long, closely written letter he gave a whiff of surprise and sat
motionless for a moment or so staring at it. Then he turned to the
commencement and read it very carefully through, after which he turned
i