"I fancied now that you might be a sailor, Mr. Gulston, though I didn't make so bold as to ask. Somehow or other there was something about your way that made me think you was bred up to the sea. I was not sure about it, for I can't recollect as ever we have had a sailor gentleman staying here for the fishing before." "No," Mr. Gulston laughed, "I don't think we often take to the rod. Baiting a six-inch hook at the end of a sea-line for a shark is about the extent to which we usually indulge; though sometimes when we are at anchor the youngsters get the lines overboard and catch a few fish. Yes, I am a sailor, and belong, worse luck, to the flagship at Plymouth. By the way," he went on, turning to Jacob Carey, "you said last night, just as you were going out, something about the curse of Carne's Hold. That's the house up upon the hill, isn't it? What is the curse, and who said it?" "It is nothing sir, it's only foolishness," the landlord said, hastily. "Jacob meant nothing by it." "It ain't foolishness, John Beaumont, and you know it--and, for that, every one knows it. Foolishness indeed! Here's Reuben Claphurst can tell you if it's nonsense; he knows all about it if any one does." "I don't think it ought to be spoken of before strangers," Hiram Powlett put in. "Why not?" the smith asked, sturdily. "There isn't a man on the country-side but knows all about it. There can be no harm in telling what every one knows. Though the Carnes be your landlords, John Beaumont, as long as you pay the rent you ain't beholden to them; and as for you, Hiram, why every one knows as your great-grandfather bought the rights of the mill from them, and your folk have had it ever since. Besides, there ain't nothing but what is true in it, and if the Squire were here himself, he couldn't say no to that." "Well, well, Jacob, there's something in what you say," the landlord said, in the tone of a man convinced against his will; but, indeed, now that he had done what he considered his duty by making a protest, he had no objection to the story being told. "Maybe you are right; and, though I should not like it said as the affairs of the Carnes were gossiped about here, still, as Mr. Gulston might, now that he has heard about the curse on the family, ask questions and hear all sorts of lies from those as don't know as much about it as we do, and especially as Reuben Claphurst here does, maybe it were better he should get the rights of the story from him." "That being so," the sailor said, "perhaps you will give us the yarn, Mr. Claphurst, for I own that you have quite excited my curiosity as to this mysterious curse." The old clerk, who had told the story scores of times, and rather prided himself on his telling, was nothing loth to begin.