Entering, Stephen found himself in an improvised chamber formed partly by the tower and partly by roughly hewn timber roofing to the adjacent walls. Dry leaves thickly covered the ground, and on a heap of them in front of the fire the brawny figure of a man in the prime of life was stretched, revelling in the smoky warmth of a fire of peat and sticks. An oil lamp, hanging from the roof, lit up the scene, which was not wanting in elements of the picturesque. By its feeble illumination, assisted by the firelight, a few pieces of extempore furniture could be discerned, such as a wooden table, two or three stools, an iron pot, and some other cooking utensils, and in the far corner a long, shallow box of wood, upon which some rags and rugs were stretched to form a not unacceptable couch for such as needed not luxury to induce slumber. To Stephen all these details were familiar, as was the bent and shrunken form of his great-grandmother, Sarah Carewe, of whom he stood in some considerable awe. In her seventy-ninth year, Mrs. Carewe might well have lived through the century with which she was popularly credited; her energy was boundless, and her brain as keen and cunning as when, nearly sixty years before, she had become the proud mother of Hiram Carewe, shot down by Sir Philip Cranstoun’s hand on that memorable evening eighteen and a half years ago. “_Baish down_, lad,” she said, pointing to a stool by the fire. “Uncle Jim and me have been looking for you for the past two hours. What’s the news up at the house?” He drew the token from his pocket and laid it in her hand. “This,” he said. “She is a prisoner, as you know, and she threw it me from her room window. The lord was there to-day at the burying. They’re driving her close to marry him, curse him! He’s as ugly as a monkey, and I could throttle him with one hand.” “Her fancy is a lot handsomer,” laughed the old crone. “I don’t blame Clare’s girl for fixing on a good-looking man.” “What do you mean?” he asked, half-fearfully, half-savagely, pausing in the act of knocking the ashes out of a pipe he had taken from his pocket. Sarah Carewe shook with creaking laughter, holding her hands to her sides as she looked at her angry descendant. “Why, I mean as how you shot the right chap when you potted the big ’un,” she said. “That’s the one she’s set her mind on.” “Who? That Pritchard cove? He’s left the place, and gone to the Cranstoun Arms and then to London----” “A lot _you_ know,” she cried, in her shaky treble. “He went to the Cranstoun Arms right enough, and Stella visited him there twice. The morning of the day that cursed Sir Philip’s _mort_ went to glory, Stella was nabbed by her father, chatting with her spark, with his arm still tied up from your shot.”