Mysterious Doings.  
We return, now, to the coast of Kent, and beg the reader to follow us into the Smuggler’s Cave at Saint Margaret’s Bay.
 
Here, in a dark corner, sat old Jeph. It was a stormy Sunday afternoon. The old man had gone to the Bay to visit Coleman, and accompany him to his place of worship. Jeph had wandered alone in the direction of the cave after church. He found that some one had recently cleared its mouth of the rubbish that usually filled it, and that, by bending low, he could gain an entrance.
 
Being of an adventurous disposition, the old man went in, and, seating himself on a projecting rock in a dark corner, fell into a profound reverie. He was startled out of this by the sound of approaching footsteps.
 
“Come in, come in,” said a deep hoarse voice, which Jeph at once recognised as that of Long Orrick, his old enemy. “Come in, Nick; you seem to have got a’feer’d o’ the dark of late. We’ll be out o’ sight here, and I’ll amuse ye till this squall blows over with an account o’ what I heer’d the old man say.”
 
“This squall, as ye call it, won’t blow over so soon as ye think,” replied Rodney Nick in a sulky tone. “Hows’ever, we may as well wait here as anywhere else; or die here for all that I care!”
 
“Hallo! messmate, wot’s ado that ye should go into the blues when we’re on the pint o’ making our fortins?” said Orrick.
 
“Ado!” cried Rodney angrily, “is it not bad enough to be called messmate by you, and not be able to deny it?”
 
“You’re civil, anyhow,” said Orrick, with an oath.
 
“I mean to be,” retorted Nick, fiercely.
 
“Come, come, it’s no use quarrelling,” said Orrick, with an affectation of good-humour. “Never say die! Nick; them’s the words o’ the immortial Nelson, w’en he gave the signal to blaze away at Trafalgar. But sit ye down here on this rock, and I’ll tell ye all about wot I see’d last night. Ye’d like to know, I dessay.”
 
“I’d like to have know’d sooner, if you had seen fit to tell me,” said Rodney Nick, in a gruff tone.
 
“Well, then, keep yer mind easy, and here goes. You know as how I chanced to hear old Jeph make an appointment with that young puppy, Guy Foster, to meet him at the darkest hour o’ night at the tomb o’ Mary Bax. Thinks I, it won’t be for nothin’ you’re goin’ to meet at sich an hour in sich a place, my hearties, so I’ll go an’ keep ye company in a private way!
 
“You may be sure I was up to time. Two hours did I wait in the ditch behind the tomb, and I can tell ye, Nick, it’s desprit eerie work a-sittin’ there all alone of a dark night, a-countin’ of the beatins of yer ’art, an’ thinkin’ every shadow of the clouds is a ghost. Hows’ever, the old man came at last, and lies down flat on the grave, and begins to groan a bit. Arter that he takes to prayin’, an’, d’ye know, the way that old feller prays is a caution. The parsons couldn’t hold a candle to him. Not that I ever heer’d ony of ’em, but I s’pose they couldn’t!
 
“Well, he was cut short in the middle by the arrival of the puppy—.”
 
“Wot puppy?” inquired Rodney.
 
“Guy, to be sure; ain’t he the biggest puppy in Deal?” said Orrick.
 
“Mayhap, but he ain’t the longest,” retorted Rodney; “go on.”
 
“Humph!—well, down sits Guy on the head o’ the tombstone, and pats old Jeph on the shoulder.
 
“‘Here I am, Jeph; come now, what is it you are so anxious to tell me?’
 
“The old man sat up: ‘I’m goin’ to die,’ says he.
 
“‘Nonsense,’ cried the young ’un, in a cheerie tone, by way of “don’t say that.” ‘You’re as tough as an old bo’sn. Come, that wasn’t what you wanted to tell me, I’m sure.’
 
“‘Ay, but it was,’ says the old man in sich an earnest voice that the young ’un was forced to become serious. ‘Listen, Guy,’ he goes on, ‘I’m goin’ to die, an’ there’s no one in this world as I’ve got to look after me.’
 
“Guy was goin’ to interrupt him at this point, but he laid his hand on his shoulder and bade him be silent.
 
“‘I’ve got no relations, Guy, except two,’ says he, ‘an’ I’ve no childer. I never married. The only girl I ever loved lies under the cold, cold sod. You know that I’m a poor man, an’ the two relations I spoke of are rich—rich—ay, and they’re fond o’ money. Mayhap that’s the reason they are rich! Moreover, they know I’ve got the matter o’ forty pounds or thereabouts, and I know that when I die they’ll fight for it—small though it is, and rich though they be—and my poor fortune will either go to them or to the lawyers. Now, Guy, this must not be; so I want you to do me a kindness. I’m too old and frail to go about matters o’ business, an’ I never was good at wot they call business in my best days, so I want you to pay all my debts for me, and bring me the receipts.’
 
“‘I’ll do it, Jeph,’ said Guy, ‘and much more than that, if you’ll only tell me how I can serve you; but you mustn’t speak in that sorrowful way about dying.’
 
“‘Sorrowful!’ cries the old man, quite surprised like; ‘bless your heart, I’m not sorrowful. Don’t the Book say, “It’s better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord?”’ (ah, you may grin as you please, Nick, but I give ye the ’xact words o’ the old hypocrite.) ‘No,............