* * * * * By this time the pair had arrived at the house indicated by the messenger. On the door of it was an enormous knocker of brass. "Knock, and it shall be opened," said the young man. Dr Piecraft had lifted the knocker and was about to let it fall when he heard his name called loudly down the street and saw a man running towards him with a piece of paper in his hand. The man approached and Piecraft, taking the paper, read as follows: "_Dr Phippeny Piecraft is needed at once for a matter of life and death._" "I must be off immediately," he said to his companion; "I am called to an urgent case. It's a matter of life and death. Duty first, my boy, and the clearing-up of mysteries afterwards! Remember what the sergeant said to Abdulla when he plucked him by the sleeve. Besides--who knows?--this may mean that the practice is going to revive." "That is precisely what it does mean," said the young man. "Matters of life and death are extremely common just now, and you are the very man to deal with them." "How do you know that?" said Piecraft with some astonishment; and, as he spoke the words, without thinking he released the lifted knocker from his hand. The knocker fell, and the instant it struck the door Dr Phippeny Piecraft knew where he was. "_It's wonderfully like the old home_," he said. A familiar laugh sounded behind him. He turned round; and the man who grasped his hand was Jim. THE PROFESSOR'S MARE I The Reverend John Scattergood, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, was of Puritan descent. The founder of the family was Caleb Scatter-the-good-seed, a cornet of horse in Cromwell's army, who had earned his master's favour by prowess at the battle of Dunbar. The family tradition averred that when Cromwell halted the pursuit of Leslie's shattered forces for the purpose of singing the 117th Psalm, it was Caleb Scatter-the-good-seed who gave out the tune and led the psalmody. This he did at the beginning of every verse by striking a tuning-fork on his bloody sword. He was mounted, said the tradition, on a coal-black horse.