Mr. Peter Norcot dwelt in one of the comfortable border farmhouses that lie among the foothills of Dartmoor near Chagford. It was an old Elizabethan domicile, and with it the wool-stapler owned a hundred acres of forest and three farms. His property adjoined the estates of the Manor of Godleigh; but he was not upon genial terms with the lord of the manor, one Sir Simon Yeoland. The knight had old-fashioned ideas on the subject of trade and looked down upon Peter; while Mr. Norcot for his part, held his neighbour a mere machine for slaughter of game and oppression of the common people—a bundle of hereditary and predatory instincts handed down from the dark ages.

There came a night in early spring when Peter sat beside his parlour fire, sipped his grog and read his Shakespeare. Gertrude Norcot, a faded but still handsome woman of five-and-thirty, kept him company until the clock chimed ten; then she stopped her work, kissed her brother on the temple and retired.

Mr. Norcot sat on until midnight; after which he put up a guard before the dying fire and was just about to go to bed when the flame burst out anew and he delayed and spread his hands to warm them. His thoughts were busy of late, for he matured the next attempt to win Grace Malherb. Still there was but one woman in the world for him, and his purpose towards her remained unshaken. But the task grew difficult indeed, for now Maurice Malherb was to be counted upon the side of his daughter.

Alone, without need of any mask, Peter\'s countenance lacked that geniality usually associated with it. To-night, in the flickering fire-gleam, he looked as though his face was carved out of yellow ivory. It revealed stern lines such as shall be seen in the facial severity of the Red Man.

Now, upon his grim and midnight cogitations, there fell suddenly a sound. The noise of tapping reached him from the window; but supposing it to be but an ivy spray escaped from the mullion and blown against the casement by nightly winds, he paid no heed. Then the sound increased and became sharper; so Norcot knew that some wanderer stood outside and summoned him. Without hesitation he threw open the shutter, pulled up the blind and looked out, to see a man with his face close against the glass. An aged but virile countenance with brilliant eyes peered in. The man beckoned, and Peter nodded and prepared to unfasten the window. The face was not unfamiliar to him, and he puzzled to recollect the person of his visitor, but failed to do so.

"\'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,\'" said Mr. Norcot to himself as the stranger entered.

"Give \'e good even. I\'ll speak with you if you\'m alone," he began, and immediately approached the light.

"I know your face; yet I know it not. Who are you?" asked Peter.

The wanderer uttered a sound that might have indicated amusement.

"I\'ve had a long journey and feared every moment to find my feet in a man-trap."

"That you need not have done upon my land. The gorge of humanity rises at such damnable contrivances. The ruffian Yeoland, lord of the manor, has both traps and spring-guns in his coverts—he showed them to me himself, cold-blooded devil. Yes, he exhibited them with such pride as a mother might display her first-born! Engines of hell! But they answer their purpose; he does not lose a bird now."

"Since when was you so merciful? Your words is soft—your eyes give \'em the lie."

Then Norcot, recognising his visitor, leapt from his seat and stared with real amazement. For once he was startled into an oath.

"Good God, it\'s Lovey Lee!"

The miser grinned.

"You was a long time finding out. Ess fay—poor old Lovey, still in the land of the living."

"But your bones were found and buried! There was a most dramatic scene, I hear. Malherb—he cried out before them all in the churchyard at Widecombe that he had slain you, that your blood was upon his head. It\'s eating his heart out, they say."

"Let it eat with poisoned teeth. No fault of his that I didn\'t die. An\' I\'ve cussed heaven for two months because the law haven\'t taken the man an\' hanged him, as I meant it to. But yet hanging\'s an easier death than what he\'s dying."

"Alive!" said Norcot. "Alive—very much alive. And turned into a man. \'Doubtless a staunch and solid piece of framework, as any January could freeze together!\' And where learnt you the trick of rising from the dead? What devil taught you that, you \'ceaseless labourer in the work of shame\'?"

"If you\'ve only got hard words——"

"Nay, nay; I love you; you are the Queen of the Moor!"

"He left me for dead, and Lord knows how long I was dead. He struck me down at dawn, and when I comed to my senses, the moon was setting. I got back to my secret place somehow, and found \'twas empty. So I seed that the Devil had helped him to find his darter. Well for her he did!"

Norcot nodded.

"Not a doubt of it," he said.

"Be you still of a mind about the wench?"

He did not answer, but prepared to pour some spirits into a glass for the old woman. Lovey, however, refused them.

"Be you still of a mind? That\'s my question."

"Maurice Malherb has changed his views. Your death has done wonders and quite broke him. An ignoble type of man

"\'We call a nettle but a nettle
And the faults of fools but folly.\'

So Shakespeare dismisses Malherb. Now tell me about yourself; then I\'ll answer your question."

"Soon told. After I seed my den was found out, bad as I was, with my skull near split and scarce able to crawl, I dragged my goods away an\' carried \'em—every stick—two mile off. For I knowed they\'d come next day an\' tear the place down an\' pull all abroad, like a boy pulls out a bird\'s nest. I reckoned the bloodhounds was arter me, too, and might finish me any minute; but nought happened and I got clear off. Then \'twas that two nights after, seeking for another hiding-place where I could be safe, I comed across a corpse. Never was a stranger sight seen. A man wi\' only one hand an\' his throat cut from ear to ear. His eyes glared through the dim fog of death upon \'em, an\' the foxes had found him. I be wearing his clothes now. They\'m very comfortable, an\' \'tis a wonder I never took to man\'s garments afore, for they\'m always to be had where there\'s scarecrows. I needn\'t tell \'e the rest, for you\'ve guessed it by your grinning. I seed how \'twould fall out, an\' so it did. My white rags of hair I cut off an\' left beside............