his happened, the light, wherever it came from, all on a sudden
went out, and Tom could not see his own hand before him.

"More dead than alive, he lay till daylight.

"Sure enough his brother Dickon was gone. No sign of him could he
discover about the house; and with some trouble he got a couple of the
neighbors to help him to search the woods and grounds. Not a sign of him
anywhere.

"At last one of them thought of the island in the lake; the little boat
was moored to the old post at the water's edge. In they got, though with
small hope of finding him there. Find him, nevertheless, they did,
sitting under the big ash-tree, quite out of his wits; and to all their
questions he answered nothing but one cry--'Bowes, the devil! See him;
see him; Bowes, the devil!' An idiot they found him; and so he will be
till God sets all things right. No one could ever get him to sleep under
roof-tree more. He wanders from house to house while daylight lasts; and
no one cares to lock the harmless creature in the workhouse. And folk
would rather not meet him after nightfall, for they think where he is
there may be worse things near."

A silence followed Tom's story. He and I were alone in that large room;
I was sitting near the open window, looking into the dark night air. I
fancied I saw something white move across it; and I heard a sound like
low talking, that swelled into a discordant shriek--"Hoo-oo-oo! Bowes,
the devil! Over your shoulder. Hoo-oo-oo! ha! ha! ha!" I started up, and
saw, by the light of the candle with which Tom strode to the window, the
wild eyes and blighted face of the idiot, as, with a sudden change of
mood, he drew off, whispering and tittering to himself, and holding up
his long fingers, and looking at them as if they were lighted at the
tips like a "hand of glory."

Tom pulled down the window. The story and its epilogue were over. I
confessed I was rather glad when I heard the sound of the horses' hoofs
on the courtyard, a few minutes later; and still gladder when, having
bidden Tom a kind farewell, I had left the neglected house of Barwyke a
mile behind me.

A DEBT OF HONOR.

A GHOST STORY.

Hush! what was that cry, so low but yet so piercing, so strange but yet
so sorrowful? It was not the marmot upon the side of the Righi--it was
not the heron down by the lake; no, it was distinctively human. Hush!
there it is again--from the churchyard which I have just left!

Not ten minutes have elapsed