Meanwhile the corpse of the ejected reprobate oscillated like a pendulum between Sheerness and Gillingham Reach. Now borne by the Medway into the Western Swale,--now carried by the refluent tide back to the vicinity of its old quarters,--it seemed as though the River god and Neptune were amusing themselves with a game of subaqueous battledore, and had chosen this unfortunate carcass as a marine shuttlecock. For some time the alternation was kept up with great spirit, till Boreas, interfering in the shape of a stiffish "Nor'-wester," drifted the bone (and flesh) of contention ashore on the Shurland domain, where it lay in all the majesty of mud. It was soon discovered by the retainers, and dragged from its oozy bed, grinning worse than ever. Tidings of the god-send were of course carried instantly to the castle; for the Baron was a very great man; and if a dun cow had flown across his property unannounced by the warder, the Baron would have kicked him, the said warder, from the topmost battlement into the bottommost ditch,--a descent of peril, and one which "Ludwig the leaper," or the illustrious Trenck himself might well have shrunk from encountering. "An't please your lordship--" said Peter Periwinkle. "No, villain! it does not please me!" roared the Baron. His lordship was deeply engaged with a peck of Feversham oysters,--he doted on shellfish, hated interruption at meals, and had not yet despatched more than twenty dozen of the "natives." "There's a body, my lord, washed ashore in the lower creek," said the Seneschal. The Baron was going to throw the shells at his head; but paused in the act, and said with much dignity,-- "Turn out the fellow's pockets!" But the defunct had before been subjected to the double scrutiny of Father Fothergill, and the Clerk of St. Bridget's. It was ill gleaning after such hands; there was not a single maravedi. We have already said that Sir Robert de Shurland, Lord of the Isle of Sheppey, and of many a fair manor on the mainland, was a man of worship. He had rights of freewarren, saccage and sockage, cuisage and jambage, fosse and fork, infang theofe and outfang theofe; and all waifs and strays belonged to him in fee simple. "Turn out his pockets!" said the Knight. "An't please you, my lord, I must say as how they was turned out afore, and the devil a rap's left." "Then bury the blackguard!" "Please your lordship, he has been buried once." "Then bury him again, and be----!" The Baron bestowed a benediction. The Seneschal bowed low as he left the room, and the Baron went on with his oysters. Scarcely ten dozen more had vanished when Periwinkle reappeared. "An't please you, my lord, Father Fothergill says as how that it's the Grinning Sailor, and he won't bury him anyhow." "Oh! he won't--won't he?" said the Baron. Can it be wondered at that he called for his boots?