passed and brought no tidings.

Miss Marty had drawn down the blinds in the Major's house, in token
of mourning and to shut out prying eyes: for during the first day or
two small crowds had collected in front and hung about the garden
gate to stare pathetically up at the windows. They meant no harm:
always when Cai Tamblyn or Scipio stepped out to remonstrate, they
moved away quietly.

They were stunned. They could not believe.

On the third day the Town Council met and elected Dr. Hansombody
Deputy-Mayor, "during the temporary absence of one whose permanent
loss this Council for the present declines to contemplate."
That same evening the Doctor called a public meeting, and in a
careful speech, interrupted here and there by emotion, told the
burgesses all there was to tell. "My friends," he concluded, "With a
sad and sorry heart I lay these few facts, these poor shreds of
evidence, before you. Oppressed as I am by the shadow of calamity, I
refuse to consider it as more than a shadow, soon under Providence to
be lifted from us. You, the witnesses of our daily intimacy, will
understand with what emotion I take up the sceptre which has fallen
from my friend's hand, with what diffidence I shall wield it, with
what impatience I shall expect the hour which restores it to his
strong grasp. In the words of Shakespeare"--here the Doctor
consulted his note-book--"he was indeed a man:"

"'Take him for all in all
We shall not look upon his like again.'"

"Of my own instance, ladies and gentlemen, I made bold to bid fifty
pounds for his recovery, feeling confident that Troy would endorse
the offer. Nor did I mistake. This morning the Corporation by
unanimous vote has guaranteed the sum. I have now the melancholy
privilege of proposing from this chair that a house-to-house canvass
be made throughout the town with the object of doubling this
guarantee." (Murmurs of approval from all parts of the hall.)

The Vicar seconded. He would remind his audience that in the
thirteenth century Richard, Earl of Cornwall, afterwards King of the
Romans, had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Saracens who
held him at ransom: and that by the promptness with which the
Cornishmen of those days, rich and poor together, made voluntary
contribution and discharged the price, they earned their coat-of-arms
of fifteen gold coins upon a sable ground, as well as their proud
motto "One and All." It had be