that we could ever see or hear, this agreeable alternation of red and black appears to be the mixture of colours most approved at the court of Beelzebub, and the one most generally adopted by his friends and favourites. His features were sharp and shrewd, and a fire sparkled in his keen grey eye much at variance with the wrinkles that ran their irregular furrows above his prominent and bushy brows. He had advanced slowly from behind his screen while the attention of the multitude was absorbed by the pyrotechnics of Mr. Merryman, and, stationing himself at the extreme corner of the stage, stood quietly leaning on a crutch-handled walking-staff of blackest ebony, his glance steadily fixed on the face of Marsh, from whose countenance the amusement he had insensibly begun to derive had not succeeded in removing all traces of bodily pain. For a while the latter was unobservant of the inquisitorial survey with which he was regarded; the eyes of the parties, however, at length met. The brown mare had a fine shoulder; she stood pretty near sixteen hands. Marsh himself, though slightly bowed by ill health and the "coming autumn" of life, was full six feet in height. His elevation giving him an unobstructed view over the heads of the pedestrians, he had naturally fallen into the rear of the assembly, which brought him close to the diminutive Doctor, with whose face, despite the red heels, his own was about upon a level. "And what makes Master Marsh here?--what sees he in the mummeries of a miserable buffoon to divert him when his life is in jeopardy?" said a shrill cracked voice that sounded as in his very ear. It was the Doctor who spoke. "Knowest thou me, friend?" said Marsh, scanning with awakened interest the figure of his questioner: "I call thee not to mind; and yet--stay, where have we met?" "It skills not to declare," was the answer; "suffice it we _have_ met,--in other climes, perchance,--and now meet happily again,--happily at least for thee." "Why truly the trick of thy countenance reminds me of somewhat I have seen before, where or when I know not; but what wouldst thou with me?" "Nay, rather what wouldst thou here, Thomas Marsh? What wouldst thou on the Frith of Aldington?--is it a score or two of paltry sheep? or is it something _nearer to thy heart_?" Marsh started as the last words were pronounced with more than common significance: a pang shot through him at the moment, and the vinegar aspect of the _Charlatan_ seemed to relax into a smile half compassionate, half sardonic. "Grammercy," quoth Marsh, after a long-drawn breath, "what knowest thou of me, fellow, or of my concerns? What knowest thou----"