interval, was the wood known as the Old Plantation, where Oliver Bradford had last

the very

seen his master alive. I was looking down, then, upon the very route which Sir Massingberd had been seen to commence, but which he had never ended. It was to the Home Spinney he had been apparently bound, when something-none knew what had changed his purpose. He would probably have passed through it, and come up by that winding path yonder to the spot where I now stood; it was the nearest way home for him. Perhaps he had done so, although it was unlikely, since the watcher had not seen him. Perhaps those very yews behind me had concealed his murderers. Shut in by those unechoing walls of living green, no cry for aid would have been heard, even if Sir Massingberd had been the man to call for it; he would most certainly have never asked for mercy. But

hark! what was that sound that froze the current of my blood, and set my heart beating and fluttering like the wings of a prisoned bird against its cage? Was it a strangled cry for "Help!" repeated once, twice, thrice, or was it the wintry wind clanging and grinding the naked branches of the Spinney? A voice had terrified me in Fairburn Chase once before, which had turned out to be no mere fancy; but there was this horror about the present sound, that I seemed to dimly recognize it. It was the voice of Sir Massingberd Heath, with an awful change in it, as if a powerful hand were tightening upon his throat. It seemed, as I have said, to come from the direction of the copse beneath, and yet I determined to descend into it, rather than thread again the mazes of those melancholy yews. The idea of my assistance being really required never entered

into my thoughts; what I wanted was to escape from this solitude, peopled only with unearthly cries, and regain the companionship of my fellow-creatures. How I regretted having left the society of those honest folk outside the gates! To remain where I was, was impossible; I should have gone mad. Fortunately, the Spinney was well-nigh leafless, and a bright but wintry sun penetrated it completely. I fled over its withered and frosted leaves, looking neither to left nor right, till I leaped the deep ditch that formed its southern boundary, and found myself in the open; then I stopped indeed quite short, for, before me, not ten paces from the Spinney, from which he must have just emerged, lay the body of Grimjaw. was still warm, but lifeless. There were no marks of violence about him; the struggle to extricate himself from the ditch, it is

It

probable, had cost the wretched creature his little remaining vitality, weakened as he must have doubtless been by his previous night's lodging on the cold stone steps. But how had he come thither, who never moved anywhere out of doors, except with Sir Massingberd or Gilmore? and whither, led perhaps by some mysterious instinct, was he going when death had overtaken him—an easy task-and glazed that solitary eye, which had witnessed so much which was still a mystery to man?

Was it possible that he had perished in endeavouring to obey his master's cry for aid? that terrible "Help! help!" which rang in my ears a while ago, as I stood in the Stone Garden, and which rings, through century, in them now?

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEARCH.

SHRINKING away from the body of the unhappy Grimjaw, and fleeing from the solitary spot in which it lay, I ran down towards the Heronry, where, in the distance, I could now perceive a number of persons assembled upon the lake-side. Below and above it, the stream flowed on as usual; but the larger area of water which contained the island, was frozen over with a thin coating of ice. This was being broken by men armed with long and heavy poles, after which the work of dragging the water was commenced. The scene was as desolate as the occupation was ghastly