"That's the devil of it," returned Titus; "and I, who was to have been chief mourner, and have made all the preparations, am to be omitted. I wish Sir Ranulph had stayed till to-morrow--what could bring him here, to spoil all?--it's cursedly provoking!" "Cursed provoking!" echoed Jack. "But then there's no help, so I must make the best of it," returned the good-humored Irishman. "Body o' me," said Coates, "there's something in all this that I can't fathom. As to keeping the prisoner _here_, that's all moonshine. But I suppose we shall know the whole drift of it to-morrow." "Ay," replied Jack, with a meaning smile, "to-morrow!" _BOOK II_ _THE SEXTON_ _Duchess._ Thou art very plain. _Bosola._ My trade is to flatter the dead--not the living--I am a tomb-maker. WEBSTER. _CHAPTER I_ _THE STORM_ Come, list, and hark! the bell doth towle, For some but now departing sowle; And was not that some ominous fowle? The bat, the night-crow, or screech-owle? To these I hear the wild wolf howle, In this dark night that seems to scowle;-- All these my blacke-booke shall enrowle, For hark! still hark! the bell doth towle For some but new-departed sowle! HAYWOOD: _Rape of Lucrece_. The night was wild and stormy. The day had been sultry, with a lurid, metallic-looking sky, hanging like a vast galvanic plate over the face of nature. As evening drew on, everything betokened the coming tempest. Unerring indications of its approach were noted by the weatherwise at the hall. The swallow was seen to skim the surface of the pool so closely that he ruffled its placid mirror as he passed; and then, sharply darting round and round, with twittering scream, he winged his rapid flight to his clay-built home, beneath the barn eaves. The kine that had herded to the margin of the water, and sought, by splashing, to relieve themselves from the keen persecution of their myriad insect tormentors, wended stallwards, undriven, and deeply lowing. The deer, that at twilight had trooped thither also for refreshment, suddenly, "with expanded nostrils, snuffed the air," and bounded off to their coverts, amidst the sheltering fernbrake. The rooks "obstreperous of wing, in crowds combined," cawed in a way that, as plainly as words could have done, bespoke their apprehension; and were seen, some hovering and beating the air with flapping pinion, others shooting upwards in mid space, as if to reconnoitre the weather; while others, again, were croaking to their mates, in loud discordant tone, from the highest branches of the lime-trees; all, seemingly, as anxious and as busy as mariners before a gale of wind. At sunset, the hazy vapors, which had obscured the horizon throughout the day, rose up in spiral volumes, like smoke from a burning forest, and, becoming gradually