The Attorney’s Adventures on the Way Home.

Mr. Jos. Larkin was now moving alone, under the limbs of the Brandon trees. He knew the path, as he had boasted to Lord Chelford, from his boyhood; and, as he pursued his way, his mind got upon the accustomed groove, and amused itself with speculations respecting the vagaries of Mark Wylder.

‘I wonder what his lordship thinks. He was very close — very’ ruminated Larkin; ‘no distinct ideas about it possibly; and did not seem to wish to lead me to the subject. Can he know anything? Eh, can he possibly? Those high fellows are very knowing often — so much on the turf, and all that — very sharp and very deep.’

He was thinking of a certain noble lord in difficulties, who had hit a client of his rather hard, and whose affairs did not reflect much credit upon their noble conductor.

‘Aye, I dare say, deep enough, and intimate with the Lakes. He expects to be home in two months’ time. He’s a deep fellow too; he does not like to let people know what he’s about. I should not be surprised if he came to-morrow. Lake and Lord Chelford may both know more than they say. Why should they both object merely to receive and fund his money? They think he wants to get them into a fix — hey? If I’m to conduct his business, I ought to know it; if he keeps a secret from me, affecting all his business relations, like this, and driving him about the world like an absconding bankrupt, how can I advise him?’

All this drifted slowly through his mind, and each suggestion had its collateral speculations; and so it carried him pleasantly a good way on his walk, and he was now in the shadow of the dense copsewood that mantles the deep ravine which debouches into Redman’s Dell.

The road was hardly two yards wide, and the wood walled it in, and overhung it occasionally in thick, irregular masses. As the attorney marched leisurely onward, he saw, or fancied that he saw, now and then, in uncertain glimpses, something white in motion among the trees beside him.

At first he did not mind; but it continued, and grew gradually unpleasant. It might be a goat, a white goat; but no, it was too tall for that. Had he seen it at all? Aye! there it was, no mistake now. A poacher, maybe? But their poachers were not of the dangerous sort, and there had not been a robber about Gylingden within the memory of man. Besides, why on earth should either show himself in that absurd way?

He stopped — he listened — he stared suspiciously into the profound darkness. Then he thought he heard a rustling of the leaves near him, and he hallooed, ‘Who’s there?’ But no answer came.

So, taking heart of grace, he marched on, still zealously peering among the trees, until, coming to an opening in the pathway, he more distinctly saw a tall, white figure, standing in an ape-like attitude, with its arms extended, grasping two boughs, and stooping, as if peeping cautiously, as he approached.

The good attorney drew up and stared at this gray phantasm, saying to himself, ‘Yes,’ in a sort of quiet hiss.

He stopped in a horror, and as he gazed, the figure suddenly drew back and disappeared.

‘Very pleasant this!’ said the attorney, after a pause, recovering a little. ‘What on earth can it be?’

Jos. Larkin could not tell which way it had gone. He had already passed the midway point, where this dark path begins to descend through the ravine into Redman’s Dell. He did not like going forward — but to turn back might bring him again beside the mysterious figure. And though he was not, of course, afraid of ghosts, nor in this part of the world, of robbers, yet somehow he did not know what to make of this gigantic gray monkey.

So, not caring to stay longer, and seeing nothing to be gained by turning back, the attorney buttoned the top button of his coat, and holding his head very erect, and placing as much as he could of the path between himself and the side where the figure had disappeared, marched on steadily. It was too dark, and the way not quite regular enough, to render any greater speed practicable.

From the thicket, as he proceeded, he heard a voice — he had often shot woodcocks in that cover — calling in a tone that sounded in his ears like banter, ‘Mark — Mark — Mark — Mark.’

He stopped, holding his breath, and the sound ceased.

‘Well, this certainly is not usual,’ murmured Mr. Larkin, who was a little more perturbed than perhaps he quite cared to acknowledge even to himself. ‘Some fellow perhaps watching for a friend — or tricks, maybe.’

Then the attorney, trying his supercilious smile in the dark, listened again for a good while, but nothing was heard except those whisperings of the wind which poets speak of. He looked before him with his eyebrows screwed, in a vain effort to pierce the darkness, and the same behind him; and then after another pause, he began uncomfortably to move down the path once more.

In a short time the same voice, with the same uncertain echo among the trees, cried faintly, ‘Mark — Mark,’ and then a pause; then again, ‘Mark — Mark — Mark,’ and then it grew more distant, and sounded among the trees and reverberations of t............