He was attired in clothes a world too wide for him; the collar of his coat rested on the nape of his neck, and its sleeve cuffs fell well nigh over his fingers; the legs of his trousers flapped loosely over his broken boots, and the tall shiny hat which he had deposited on the deal table, after carefully wiping it with a coloured handkerchief, had evidently seen better days upon another and perhaps honester head. His brow was low and narrow; the frontal bones projecting over keen eyes of a nondescript colour, and a mean turned-up nose. Mistrust, acuteness, suspicion and avarice, were the leading expressions of his face, which would have horrified a disciple of Lavater; yet, in the tone of his voice, and in his manner, there was an affectation of deferential suavity, as if he sought to win rather than to repel a confidence that few, unless very simple indeed, would accord to one with lips so thin and cruel, and whose ears, like those of a cat, were nearly on the line of his pericranium, which was covered by a few wisps of thin, grey, and dead-looking hair. Yet this ugly personage has been described to the reader before. Perceiving that his jest had not been appreciated by the veteran, he resumed the conversation in a different style. "Know these parts?" said he, drinking his gin-and-water, and fixing his eyes furtively on Derrick. "Think I should," was the curt response. "Ah"-- There was a pause; then the other said,-- "Many hereabout will be surprised to hear of old Derrick Braddon coming to earth again." The shabby stranger started, and the iris of his cunning eyes dilated and shrunk again in a somewhat feline fashion, as he asked eagerly,-- "What! were you the groom to Captain Devereaux who--well, occasionally--lived at Porthellick?" "To the Right Honorable Lord Lamorna, if it is all the same to you," replied Derrick, stiffly. "It is quite the same. What on earth is up! Is the sky about to rain larks, eh?" "It is pouring a torrent anyhow, at this moment," was the dry response, as a fresh gust without clashed the leaves against the window-panes, and the cry of the red-legged Cornish chough, driven from his eyrie in the cliffs, was heard on the passing tempest. "Where have you been all this time--nearly nine months, now?" "That is too long a story to tell a stranger." "And where is your master?" "In his grave, God rest him!--in his grave, if the great sea can be called so." "How long have you been in England?" "Three weeks." "And in Cornwall?" "I have just arrived." "Then you may not have heard of me, William Schotten Sharkley, solicitor, who acted as your mistress's agent in her case which failed for want of legal or documentary proofs. I did all that I could to befriend her--" "And pocketed her last shilling, as I have heard." "Law is an expensive amusement, and lawyers must be paid. I did my best."