and his emissaries.

“You that have pistols that will go off, round with you to guard the back doors!” cried Constable John Black. “It’s there the thieves have taken up their abode. The smoke is coming from the kitchen lum. I see it well. The rest, not so well armed, bide here with me under the protection of the law!”

And with that Constable Black, commonly called Jocky, elevated once more his staff in the air, and marched boldly to the fatal door. He went up the steps by which the Grey Lady was wont to descend to the clear moonlight to take her airing in the wood. A little behind went Connoway, in the same manner holding a “bourtree” pop-gun which he had just been fashioning for some lucky callant of his acquaintance.

Almost for the first time in his life Boyd Connoway had all the humour to himself. Nobody laughed at his imitation of Officer Jocky’s pompous ways. They would do it afterwards in the safety of their own dwellings and about the winter fire. But not now—by no means now.

Even though supported by the majestic power of the law, the crowd kept respectfully edging behind wall and trees. Their eyes were directed warily upwards to the long array of windows from which (legend recounted) the Maitlands of Marnhoul had once during the troubles of the Covenant successfully defended themselves against the forces of the Crown.

Now be it understood once for all, the inhabitants of Eden Valley were peaceful and loyal citizens, except perhaps in what concerned the excise laws and the ancient and wholesome practice of running cargoes of dutiable goods without troubling his Majesty’s excise officers about the matter. But they did not wish to support the law at the peril of their lives.

An irregular crackle of shots, the smashing of window glass in the back of the mansion, with two or three hurrahs, put some courage into them. On the whole it seemed less dangerous to get close in under the great vaulted porch. There, at least, they could not be reached by shot from the windows, while out in the open or under the uncertain shelter of tree boles, who knew what might happen? So there was soon a compact phalanx about the man in authority.

Constable Black, being filled with authority direct from the Lord-Lieutenant of the County, certainly had the instinct of magnifying his office. He raised his arm and knocked three times on the bleached and blistered panels of the great front door.

“Open, I command you! In the name of the law!” he shouted.

After the knocking there befell a pause, as it might be of twenty breaths—though nobody seemed to draw any. Such a silence of listening have I never heard. Yes, we heard it, and the new burst of firing from the rear of the house, the cheers of the excited assailants hardly seemed to break it, so deeply was our attention fixed on that great weather-beaten door of the Haunted House of Marnhoul.

Again Jocky, his face lint-white, and his voice coming and going jerkily, cried aloud the great name of the law. Again there was silence, deeper and longer than before.

At last from far within came a pattering as of little feet, quick and light. We heard the bolts withdrawn one by one, and as the wards of the lock rasped and whined, men got ready their weapons. The door swung back and against the intense darkness of the wide hall, with the light of evening on their faces, stood a girl in a black dress and crimson sash, holding by the hand a little boy of five, with blue eyes and tight yellow curls.

Both were smiling, and before them all that tumultuary array fell away as from something supernatural. The words “In the name of——” were choked on the lips of the constable. He even dropped his silver-headed staff, and turned about as if to flee. As for us we watched with dazzled eyes the marvels that had so suddenly altered the ideas of all men as to the Haunted House of Marnhoul.

But for a space no one moved, no one spoke. Only the tall young girl and the little child stood there, like children of high degree receiving homage on the threshold of their own ancestral mansion, facing the lifted bonnets and the pikes lowered as if in salutation.

“My name is Irma Maitland, and this is my brother Louis!” Such were the famous words with which, in response to law and order in the person of Constable Jacky Black, the tall smiling girl in the doorway of the Haunted House of Marnhoul saluted her “rescuers.”

“And how came you to be occupying this house?” demanded Mr. Josiah Kettle, father of Joseph the inventive. He was quite unaware of the ghastly terrors with which his son had peopled the Great House, but as the largest farmer on the estate he felt it to be his duty to protect vested rights.

“In the same way that you enter your house,” said the girl; “we came in with a key, and have been living here ever since!”

“Are you not feared?” piped a voice from the crowd. It was afterwards found that it was Kettle junior who had spoken.

“Afraid!” answered the girl scornfully, holding her head higher than ever; “do you think that a few foolish people firing at our windows could make us afraid? Can they, Louis?” And as she spoke she looked fondly down at her little brother.

He drew nearer to his sister, looking up at her with a winning confidence, and said in as manly a voice as he could compass, “Certainly not, Irma! But—tell them not to do it any more!”

“You hear what my brother says,” said the girl haughtily. “Let there be no more of this!”

“But—in right of law and order, I must know more about this!” cried Constable Jacky, lifting up his staff again. Somehow, however, the magic had gone from his words. Every one now knew that his thunder had a hollow sound.

“Ah, you are the gendarme—the official—the officer!” said the tall girl, with a more pronounced foreign accent than before, making him a little bow; “please go and tell your superiors that we are here because the place belongs to us—at least to my brother, and that I am staying to take care of him.”

“But how did you come?” persisted the man in authority.

The tall girl looked over his head. Her glance, clear, cool, penetrating, scanned face after face, and then she said, as it were, regretfully, “There are no gentlefolk among you?”

There was the slightest shade of inquiry about words which might have seemed rude as a mere affirmation. Then she appeared to answer for herself, still with the same tinge of sadness faintly colouring her pride. “For this reason I cannot tell you how we came to be here.”

Mr. Josiah Kettle felt called upon to assert himself.

“I have reason to believe,” he said pompously, “that I am as good as any on the estate in the way of being a gentleman—me and my son Joseph. I am a Justice of the Peace, under warrant of the Crown, and so one day will my son Joseph—Jo, you rascal, come off that paling!”

But just then Jo Kettle had other fish to fry. From the bad eminence of the garden palisade he was devouring the new-comer with his eyes. As for me, I had shaken the hand of the lately adored Greensleeves from my arm.

The girl’s glance stayed for an instant and no more upon the round and rosy countenance of Mr. Josiah Kettle, Justice of the Peace. She smiled upon him indulgently, but shook her head.

“I am sorry,” she said, with gentle condescension, “that I cannot tell anything more to you. You are one of the people who broke our windows!”

Then Josiah Kettle unfortunately