From All The Year Round

The Shadow of a Dream

A Story

I never had any thought of danger during the whole twenty years I made the journey; nothing ever happened to me; and then to think the very first time this youngster goes, he—but I must begin at the beginning.

The way of our bank at Charrendon was just this. We had several branches at distant places—small towns, you understand, where there was not enough business done to pay for keeping a clerk constantly on the spot, so we only had an office, and only opened it on market-days, once a week.

One of us used to go over in the morning and return at night. The railway helped us to three of these journeys, but the fourth, to Meresdene, had to be made by gig. The place lay fifteen miles off, in the very bosom of the downs, and the road ran all in amongst them, and sometimes over their topmost shoulders. It was for the most part lonely, and in winter sometimes very rough and bleak. I had to do the day’s business at Meresdene, but, beyond bitter winds, snow, and rain, nothing ever befell me, as I have said, for twenty years. In the summer it was a pleasant drive; in winter, of course, in bad weather, it was an unpleasant one—that was all the impression it ever made upon me. Young Chase, however, never seemed to fancy it; from the first, when it was talked about for him to do, he did not like the idea. He told me so, and I laughed at him. I said, “Oh! you won’t mind it; after a bit you’ll think nothing of it, no more than I do.” You understand, he was not used to the country; he had been born and bred in London, and they drafted him from our chief office there, down here, for the sake of his health. He had been ailing a long while; the doctors said he ought to live out of town; and, being a trusty servant, and liked by our manager, an exchange was arranged.

He had been at Charrendon about six months, and did not seem much the better for the change. He was tall and muscular, but a thin, pale-faced, large-eyed fellow, always fond of reading Shakespeare and the like, and had a dreamy, absent kind of way with him at times; and was particularly fond, in his leisure, of wandering over our downs with his book. He often used to talk to me about them, saying how beautiful they were, and that no sort of country that he had ever been in had impressed him so much. I am afraid I did not greatly sympathize with him; the downs had never been anything to me. Indeed, I don’t know that I ever gave them a thought, till he used to speak about them, and yet I have lived hard by them nearly all my life.

Well, as I was saying, he had been with us six months, and it was just about the beginning of November, when I was attacked by rheumatism. They said if I did not take care, I should be laid up, and that I must not expose myself through the coming cold weather. This led to young Chase’s having to do my work at Meresdene. So I drove him over one week to show him the road, and the way the work was done, that he might be able to take my place the following week and for the rest of the winter.

Now it was when this was settled that he first seemed to shirk the job. He told me that he had been constantly dreaming about the downs, and, as he seemed to say, one particular part of them. Mind you, he had never seen the place, didn’t know there was such a place really; but he said he had dreamt of it over and over again, and it always made him uncomfortable. It was a deep chalk-cutting, he said, past which the road wound up the side of a hill from one of the bottoms or valleys. In a sort of way, he described the place to me, but, bless your heart, I never paid any heed to it; I didn’t recognize it as any place I knew; and it was only when I was driving him over to Meresdene, that I found out what he meant.

We were exactly half-way on our journey, and had turned on to what are known as the Whiteways; that is, several narrow chalk tracks which show up very white across the turf, and run side by side with the road for some distance, as it descends the steep hill past a great chalk-cutting. This, perhaps, is the most solitary and exposed part of the drive, and lies on one of the highest ridges of the Downs. There is no habitation for a good mile on either hand; Dene’s Gate turnpike, at the bottom of the hill, being the nearest; and when we came to the beginning of the descent, where we could see down into the valley—there’s a splendid view, mind you, there—he almost frightened the life out of me by suddenly jumping up from his seat and exclaiming: “There! there it is! that’s the place; that’s the very place I’ve seen a hundred times before, in my dreams! I have seen it every night, for a month past!”

Sure enough, the road passes the chalk-cutting, but I had never thought anything of that, and it had never occurred to me as being the place he meant.

“Well,” I said, “sit down; don’t excite yourself like that, you’ll upset the gig. If it is the place, it won’t bite you!” And then he sank down quietly by my side, his chin dropped on his chest, one of his dreamy fits came on, and he never spoke another word till we reached Meresdene.

The little town was busy with the sheep-market, and he roused up throughout the day. He was always nimble at his work, soon took in what was to be done, and was quite comfortable until we set out homewards. Then the dreamy fit seemed to come on again. It was past five o’clock, and getting dark, when we stopped at Dene’s Gate turnpike to light our lamps. Soon after this, we began to ascend the hill, near the top of which is the chalk-cutting and the Whiteways. I was on the look-out for what he would do here, expecting some oddity, for he was always odd; but he remained silent, and beyond fidgeting in his seat, and looking from side to side of the road, and up at the steep cliff of chalk as far as the twilight and glitter of our lamps would show it him, he did nothing; and when we got back to Charrendon, I said: “Well, there’s not much to be afraid of in that day’s work, is there? And now that you have seen the reality, perhaps you’ll leave off dreaming about the Whiteways.” He merely smiled, and said: “Oh, no, of course not; it’s only a stupid fancy I had. There’s no difficulty about the journey; I shall do it all right enough.” Yet I thought he forced himself rather to say this, and didn’t mean it.

Well, nothing particular happened during the next week, only I noticed that young Chase was a little more dreamy and odd than usual. I said to him on the Tuesday (as he was to go on the Wednesday): “You don’t really mind this job, do you? or would you like to have some one with you? We might send the ostler lad, I think.” Whereupon he said, very hurriedly and anxiously, I thought: “Oh dear no; no, certainly not; on no account!” and I answered, “Well, I think you are right; it would look rather silly; you might get laughed at.” Though I am bound to say of late years, since the railways have brought London so much closer to us, people have more than once said that they thought it rather foolhardy of me to come back at night alone in the winter, seeing there was always a good sum of money in the driving-seat, the farmers’ payings-in, and the like, during the day, you understand. But, bless your heart, I never had any fear, and I could not understand why anybody else should; so I was quite relieved when young Chase plucked up, and would not hear of having anybody with him.

Well, off he went. We were very busy all day, and I thought no more about him. My time home from Meresdene had usually been a little before seven, according to the roads and the weather. I love over the office, you understand, and I have done so ever since I was made chief clerk. I looked at my watch after I had had my tea, and was astonished to see it was half past seven. I was astonished, that is, because young Chase was not back; and I confess I began to get a little fidgety, when another half-hour passed, and still he had not returned. I looked out of the window and saw there was a thick fog—so thick, I could not see the lamps on the other side of the market-place. This accounted for his delay in my mind; the thing had happened to me; but the roads are so white, and Jenny, the old mare, knew them so well, that beyond going slowly there was no difficulty; but still, when ten, half past, and eleven came, and no sign of young Chase—well! I didn’t like it, and I was going to send over to the chief of the police, when the horse and gig came trotting up to the door.

I looked out. The fog was all gone, and it was a bright starlight night; but you may judge my state of mind when, going down, who should be at the door but Joe Muzzle, the turnpike-man from Dene’s Gate, and another.

Says he, very excited, and hurrying over his words: “Your young man, sir, found for dead just below the Whiteways. We can’t tell northin’ at all about it. My missus and I was just going to turn in, when we heerd somethin’ clanking agin the gate like: I goes out, and there be’es a horse and gig, and ne’er a driver, and on examination I find it be’es your gig, reins cut or broke, and dragglin’ on the road; there be’es a bit of a fog about, and I sings out, but no one answers, so I routs my youngster out o’ bed, and send him off to Gray’s Farm, the nearest house, for help, for I know’d there must ha’ been an accident, for I let the young gentleman through the gate at the reg’lar time, soon after five this afternoon, on his way home, and he gives me a sort of sleepy nod like, without speaking; and ‘Now where be’es ’un?’ I says to my missus, for it was just nine then, and chaise and he ought to have been at Charrendon long ago. This man, Farmer Gray’s foreman, comes back with my boy in about half an hour, and with a couple of lanterns we goes slowly on to the Whiteways, leading the horse and gig with us, ’specting to find the young gentleman pitched out, or somethin’ like that. And, sure enough, just when we gets under that there old chalk-cutting, this man here comes upon his body just above the edge of the slope, for the fog had lifted then, and he could see plainly. He seemed quite dead, and we thought the best thing we could do was to take ’un back to the pike, which we done, in the gig, as quick as possible. Then I sends my boy to Meresdene, for the doctor, and he’s with ’un now, and then he sends me on here to tell you. I’ve spliced the reins up a bit, and we got through, and werry sad it all be’es, bain’t it? and now what be’es best to be done?”

This was a puzzling question, truly, but I went and woke up the police, and two or three of our clerks, and then we had some more talk with Joe Muzzle. Joe is quite a character in his way, and if you give him a start, he’ll run on, clacking like a clock. I did give him a start, and then he said: “Searching about the place where we found the poor young gen’lman, as well as we could with the lanterns, we finds the cushions pitched out and the whip broke in two—’fraid I left that at the pike; but here be’es some proper mar-drous weapons,” and he poured from his capacious pockets a pair of small flint-lock pistoles; “there warn’t nothing else to show what had happ’d but the off gig-step seems to have got a twist-like, and the off lamp be stove in—that, I reckon, was comin’ agin’ the pike with ne’er a driver.”

Here we adjourned to the stable, to examine the gig, and you’ll understand that all this time my mind was running on the cash. Was that safe, I wondered?

To my dismay there was not a sign of it in the driving-seat. This led to more questioning of Muzzle, but he swore there was nothing else found on the road, except what he had produced. It seemed as if he were about right, for, to cut this part of my story short, we could not come on any trace of it, though we knew pretty well to a penny how much young Chase had, and what shape it was in. Afterwards a sort of suspicion did fall on Muzzle, and the man who helped him; their belongings were all overhauled, but with no result. I need not tell you that this affair made a great commotion for miles round. It got into the London papers. We had a host of inspectors and detectives down; our bank offered a reward, and so did the government, for the apprehension of the thief.

Young Chase lay at the little turnpike for over a fortnight, quite insensible, like a log. He had received a concussion of the brain, the doctors said; but beyond this, there was no injury apparent. They couldn’t quite make it out; no more could anybody, for the matter of that; and even when he had shown signs of life and opened his eyes, he was for a month or two unable to speak coherently, or understand what was said to him. All this while, you can guess that enquiries and examinations were going on in all directions, but there was no clue to the robbery, for robbery there had been, no doubt, or where was the money? One of the pistols was discovered to be loaded, whilst the other, though the hammer was down, did not appear to have been fired; both pan and barrel were quite empty and clean; clearly he had not been shot at. Then to whom did the pistols belong? He was never known to possess any, and they bore no maker’s name; at least there were signs that it had been erased. The keenest wits of Scotland Yard were baffled; we could make nothing of it; not a person was apprehended, even on suspicion.

I must now tell you, however, as ill-luck would have it, the news of the poor young fellow’s mischance was such a severe shock to his aged mother—the only relative he had, that we knew of—that she died two days after she heard it. Hence I was deputed privately by our directors to look over young Chase’s room and effects. This led to our getting a sort of clue—at least, it made a link in the chain, though perhaps on the whole it rather added to the mystery, as you will say, when you have read this paper. I found it in an envelope inscribed with these words: “To be given to my mother, if I do not return this night from Meresdene. –November 15, 1846.”

And this is what the paper contained:—

“Years have passed since the first faint shadow of the dream fell across my life. I have put it aside again and again, as an idle and vain imagining, but it has always returned; sooner or later, the vision has always revisited my pillow. Still, how could I, a sensible man with my faculties about me, conceive that it should mean anything more than one of those curious freaks of our uncontrolled sleeping thoughts common to all? How could I imagine that it pointed to a reality? Yet, when six months ago, I found that circumstances beyond my control had brought me into the sort of country that made the background of this dream, I marked the strangeness of the coincidence. When, too, I found with this that the dream was far more frequent in recurrence, and more vivid and circumstantial in detail, I was not the less impressed. And when at last I saw that events were conspiring to necessitate my making a night journey across the downs alone, the shadow of the dream oppressed me with a vague dread. I used to think of Hamlet’s words: ‘O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams!’ I was absolutely sure, when starting on that preliminary drive last week, that I should see the spot. I knew it as a foregone conclusion, so that when we turned the brow of that last big down, and came upon what they call the Whiteways, and the hill road running past the chalk-cutting lay before me, I instantly recognized the place which had for all these years been the one prevailing picture of my dream.

“There it was! There was the scene, as it first faintly presented itself to my sleeping eyes years ago; as it had ever since continued to come before them at intervals with increasing vividness. The effect on the landscape of a winter’s twilight, deepening into night, began to suggest itself after a while. In addition to this, I could at times discern, but only in that vague manner belonging to dreams, a horse and gig toiling slowly up the hill. This incident also gradually increased in reality, and by the time I had been here at Charrendon a month I could often see that it was myself who was driving. Almost every night I dreamt that I saw myself doing this. I was alone in the gig, the lamps were lighted, and gave to the white horse, and the chalk-cutting under which I was forever passing, a spectral aspect. I never seemed to get beyond this spot, until there first arose a talk in the office about the possibility of my having to do our chief clerk’s (Mr. Shepfold’s) work at Meresdene. After this, there was a change and confusion in the vision. A frosty fog hung about; the gig-lamps glimmered through it fitfully, giving an unusual phantom-like look to all I beheld. I saw myself for an instant driving as usual, but the next the horse and gig had vanished, and I was bending over the form of a man prostrate on the road. In one of his hands he held the leather padlocked bag which contained the bank money. A crape mask hid his face, but there was an ominous streak of red upon the white road beside him, and my hands were tinted with the same color. Intense horror possessed me, for I felt that I had killed him! Aghast at the deed, I strove to drag his body to the side of the Whiteways, opposite the chalk-cutting, where the down slopes abruptly to a hollow some hundreds of feet below. In my attempts to do this I always awoke. Then, every night for three or four weeks, was I haunted and made miserable by this accursed dream, and when I knew that it was finally settled that I should have to make the journey alone, and discovered that there existed a spot on the road, actually resembling in all its details that which I was only too familiar with, I could no longer mistake the meaning of my dream. It could be nothing but a portent—a warning of what might happen to be. I should be there; I should pass the place on my journey home, in darkness and alone—conditions favorable to the attack which I could not but suppose now would be made upon me, for the sake of the money which my business would oblige me to carry. I should defend it, and I should kill my assailant! Yet why was the veil, which it is the privilege of man to find ever hanging before his future, lifted for me? What have I done, that the one shield which guards the happiness of human beings, that ignorance of what the next day or the next hour may have in store for them, should be dashed from my too far-seeing eyes? Why has my life been gradually and irresistibly embittered by a sight of what might justifiably, though unintentionally, be forced upon me?

“That a man, in the contemplation of some hideous crime, should be warned from it in a dream that showed him to what it would lead, seems feasible; and we have heard that such things have been, and that men have been turned from their evil purpose thereby. But that I, knowing of no malicious intention; having, as God is my judge, none in my heart; should have thus been persecuted by some fiendish, uncontrollable phantom of the brain, which, by its persistent nightly presence should have shed its horrid shadow on my daily life, was unaccountable.

“Yet there was more behind; more mystery to aggravate the terror. Coming home after that visit to Meresdene with Mr. Shepfold, I threw myself on my bed, with a dread of sleep that I cannot express. Perfectly certain now that I should go on dreaming till the end was reached, I determined I would not sleep. I lay there, devising some plan by which I could avert this impending catastrophe. It was my duty to do so, both to myself and my employers; for the sum of money I should have with me would be very large. I would detail to them exactly what I have said above; I would urge them to see it as I saw it—that it was an unmistakable warning which we had no right to disregard. They might think me a fool, a lunatic, a coward—what they pleased; but I would not take that journey alone, and I hoped they would not wish it. Yes, I would state my case the following morning. An infinite sense of relief came over me when I had made this decision, a calm to which I had been a stranger for months—a calm, indeed, that, despite my resolution, soothed me to sleep.

“Instantly I dreamt. Of course I was upon the downs, under the usual circumstances; the frosty fog, the gig with glimmering lights, the chalk-cutting, the hill road beneath it, the Whiteways, as I now knew the spot to be called; then the prostrate form upon the road, the red stain upon the chalk, my figure with the bloody hands, bending over it; details which I had always been able to discern plainly in my dreams, notwithstanding the want of light; and the effort I myself am making to drag the body across the road, to hurl it down the steep slope!

“But ah! what new and strange revelation is this? What new and terrible solution to this mysterious dreaming is about to be made to me? The crape mask, that has always hitherto hidden from me the man’s face, is gone! [A]nd I behold in my assailant and robber the unmistakable features of—but I dare not write his name, lest this fall into other hands than yours, mother—but you will understand who it was I thus saw in my dream, when I say it was he who is the unhappy cause of our great grief and sorrow, and whom we suppose now to be far away. I was awake again the instant after this, in a frame of mind exceeding in its agony anything I had ever felt. If I might accept all that had gone before as a portent, why should I doubt the catastrophe was to be brought about by this unhappy man? [I]t would not be more marvelous than any other part of my never-failing dream. Should there be any truth in it and it was my destiny to be attacked and robbed by him, then there was sufficient reason for my not claiming the protection which a companion on that journey might give me. No; I now knew I must go alone to meet whatever might befall, or to dispel at once and forever the shadow of the dream. If I was really so to meet him in the flesh, if he really be in England, no one must know it but myself. Then the dream may, after all, become the beneficent means of saving him, and preserving me from the committal of a deed that would weigh upon me to the end of time.

“Thus concluding on the morning after my expedition with Mr. Shepfold, I had but to wait for this the momentous day. It has come, and in a few hours I shall be on my road. For the last seven successive nights, the vision, with all its latest circumstances, has been present whenever, through sheer fatigue, I have given way to sleep; whilst by day, its shadow has darkened on me hourly, to the exclusion of all but that scene on the Whiteways.

“I start, at least prepared.”

Very dim was the light, however, that this statement let in upon the catastrophe. To be brief, it led to nothing practical; nothing could be done until young Chase had recovered sufficiently to be able to give a personal account of the affair. Months passed before this was possible; his health returned very slowly. The doctors forbade any questioning or excitement, and I really didn’t know the details of anything that had transpired until he was pronounced fit to appear before out board of directors.

Then I was present, with the rest of the people concerned. It was like a private court of justice, and young Chase was arraigned, as it were, like a criminal. When he came into the room his altered appearance was startling. I had only seen him twice since his setting out on the fatal journey: once, when he was lying quite insensible at the turnpike; and once, when he was only a little better, at the county hospital. He now looked twenty years older; his thin, pale face was deeply furrowed, his long dark hair thickly tinged with grey, and the dreamy expression in his large eyes had changed to one of wildness, whilst his black clothes added to his weird, ghost-like appearance. He pulled himself together, however, by a great effort, and, in answer to the questions the chairman put, this is about what he said, as near as I can remember.

“The statement which you, gentlemen, found addressed to my poor mother, and which you have just read to me, is strictly true to the letter. It is fuller than any account I can give now of my feelings and state of mind prior to the 15^th of November. I have very little to add, but I will tell you what I can.

“As I approached the Whiteways, on my return-homeward journey, all the conditions of my dream were realized. I appeared to have been within them so often before, that I jight have been dreaming then. Everything was so familiar. There was no difference between my sensations asleep or awake. I had no sense of being, of actual existence, in one state more than the other. I felt I was gliding to my destiny, gliding without movement, without bodily effort, precisely as one does in sleep. I can give no better account of what happened. The fog wrapped me round. There was an interval, an impression that I was struggling, I appeared to fall; and then I awoke in the hospital, two months back. I can tell you no more.”

“But did you see no one? Did no one stop you?”

“No one, that I am aware of; but I could not swear it,” was the answer.

“But the pistols; were they yours?”

“Yes; mechanically I had provided myself with them; but with no thought of using them. If I remember rightly, I took them from my pocket, and placed them between my feet when I left Dene’s Gate. I wished no one to know that I was armed.”

“And, on your word and honor, Mr. Chase, you do not remember being attacked?”

“On my oath, I remember no more than I have told you.”

“And the money; where was that?”

“In the driving-seat under me, in the padlocked leather bag which Mr. Shepfold always used.”

“You know nothing more of it than that it was there when you started?”

“Nothing; on my oath.”

Then, after a long pause, during which many signs of dissatisfaction spread through all listeners, the chairman continued, as he referred to Chase’s statement,—

“It is now my duty to ask you to whom, in this extraordinary story you have given of your dream, you refer as your visionary assailant. It is most essential—vital to your interests—that you keep nothing back from us, whether asleep or awake.”

Here Chase was visibly moved. He shrank, as it were, within himself; he dropped his eyes, cowering. Presently he said, recovering slightly,—

“I had hoped to have been spared this, seeing that my words were intended for no eyes but my mother’s.”

“The whole business,” went on the chairman, “is so visionary and unsatisfactory, that you are bound to explain to whom you refer; your position with us demands it. You have been a tried and trustworthy servant, but you will forfeit all the past if you do not aid us in our efforts to discover the perpetrator of this robbery. An indication of who this mysterious person is may give us a clue. I conjure you to tell us everything, Mr. Chase.”

Again he resisted; again he was urged to speak; he continued silent, growing paler every moment. There was a nervous clutching of the hands and twitching of the mouth; he staggered as if he were going to faint; he sank upon a chair, and his head drooped; it was a very painful scene now, for he was much respected. Once again, the chairman insisted, commanding him to say to whom he alluded.

At length he arose, looking more like a ghost than anybody I ever saw, and, gazing vacantly round the room with a return of his old, dreamy air, said in a faint and hollow voice, and without seeming to address any one in particular: “It matters little now. The shadow falls upon me for the last time; it can never lift again. He casts it upon me; he has blighted my life; he hastens my death.”

“Who? Whom do you mean?” cried the chairman. For one minute Chase seemed brought back to a waking state. He looked straight at the chairman as he replied: “My brother, sir; my twin brother. I will conceal nothing from you now. When only sixteen years of age he was transported for forgery. We contrived to hide the business from our friends; had we not done so, I should never have obtained the post of trust I have held in your bank. Had the fact of his existence even reached your ears while I yet held it, you would have taken it from me, and I and my mother would have been irretrievably disgraced. This is why I did not write his name in that statement. But his name was Edward, and you will find the record in—” The speaker suddenly stopped, put his hand to his forehead, once more staggered back into the chair, and thence fell heavily to the floor.

The doctor, who had watched his case throughout, was by his side instantly, and, after the very slightest examination, pronounced him dead.

There is no occasion to dwell upon what immediately followed. His dying statement was found to be correct, and an Edward Chase—twin brother to John—proved to have been transported two years before the latter obtained his bank appointment.

Our directors made it their business, through the Home Office, to get every information concerining this man, and the whole of this strange business is made the stranger by what they thus discovered. It turned out, after the most careful scrutiny and comparison of dates, that the convict, Edward Chase, had not only never left the Australian penal colony to which he had been consigned, and therefore could never have had a hand in the robbery on the Whiteways, but that, after committing a series of crimes as a bushranger, he was convicted of having robbed and killed a man on a lonely highway, on the 15^th of November, ’46; that he escaped, and being recaptured at the end of some months, was actually executed on the very day that poor John fell down dead in our board-room!

These are the facts, and, I suppose, justify the name which, in this neighborhood, is given to the story. It has been a terrible shadow indeed. It rested on the whole of us for a long time, I can tell you; but, for my part, I think it all came from poor John’s encouraging his dreamy fancies for wandering about the downs and lonely places, and reading poetry, Shakespeare, and the like. I don’t hold with that sort of thing; it partly turned his head, poor fellow, I’m sure—at least, you will understand that’s the way in which I account for it all, for you’ll never convince me that there was anything more than coincidence in it. The poor fellow’s queer, odd nature was so worked upon, that he probably had a fit when he got to the Whiteways, and fell out of the gig. The doctor told me privately that was his opinion; and it was a fit that killed him in the end. I am not going to believe, as some folks do hereabouts, that there was any spiritual influence in the work of his dreaming. Why, I know a man who wants to make out that it was the villainous life the brother in Australia was leading, and his contemplation of the murder which he committed on the 15^th of November, that affected the mind of John Chase, here in England—through their twinship, you understand. Bah! I’m not going to believe that kind of stuff—no, I’m too matter-of-fact for that, I hope. You shake your heads; but the end proves I’m right, I think.

Eight years and a half passed, and the matter was almost forgotten, when, one spring, the little mere, which lies between Gray’s Farm and the town of Meresdene, was drained, and, amongst the white chalky mud, what did the workmen come upon but an old brown leather bag, with a padlock! My old leather bag, with all the money that poor John Chase had with him when he left the bank that night—every penny of it intact, except for the rotting which the notes and cheques had got from the wet.

Well, for a day or two this was the greatest wonder of all. However could it have got there? the neighborhood all round was talking about it, and, as a matter of course, it comes to the ears of a certain man, lying sick, well-nigh to death, of a fever at Gray’s Farm. When he hears of this find he turns very uncomfortable, sends for the parson, and says he,—

“I can’t die with it on my soul—I flung that bag into the mere, I did.”

“How did you come by it?”

“Why, when Joe Muzzle and I came upon the body of that poor young Chase, lying upon the Whiteways, and were groping about with the lanterns, and picking up the whip, and the cushions, and the pistols, and all the rest of it, I kicked against the bag. Joe never saw me. I guesed what it contained. I slipped it into my pocket, and said nothing about it. When I got home I found I couldn’t open it, and I hid it for two or three days under my bed. Then, when it got wind that the police were likely to search Joe’s crib and mine, why, I grew frightened lest it should be found on me. I slipped out in the middle of the night, and flung it into the mere.”

With this confession on his lips, the man died; and the man was Farmer Gray’s foreman!