“Look’ee here, master,” said the intruder, hesitating and apparently embarrassed, “I’ll ventur’ to speak Gawd’s truth, with your honour’s kind indulgence. I’m a Jack-o’-trades, I am--a handy man, ye might call me, and tough as a dawg in bout or brawl. You live lonely, says I to myself--the gent lives lonely; and there be reskel characters about in every lonely by-way. He might find me useful, the gent might; and my sarvice is for him, so be he rekvires it. Roses, says you? Well, not partiklerly; but cabbages--yes--bein’ all heart and head. That’s what I am--heart and head, and both at your honour’s sarvice. I know a thing or two. Them shutters, now--how be they fastened?” Actually, as he spoke, he was stepping into the room, smile and all, with the apparent intention of setting his mind at rest on the subject. However, the gentleman jumped up and barred his way. “What!” cried the latter. “Take yourself off, fellow--you aren’t wanted here!” The man stopped; scratched his head with a laughable expression of chagrin, and retreated muttering. “No offence, master; no offence,” said he, and either a very comical or a very wicked light glinted in his little eyes as he retired. Dennis escorted him without, and the voices of the two in low converse came to Mr. Tuke where he stood. He rattled on the window angrily, and the man slouched off, going in the direction of the drive. Now the oddness of this apparition and of the interview it had brought about was filling the baronet with a sense of uneasiness. There had been that in the fellow that had seemed to belie his assumption of stupidity; and, after a moment’s thought, Tuke left the hall, quitted the house by a back door, and started rapidly upon a private _détour_ that should bring him upon the drive at a point near to the ruined lodge. He wished to satisfy himself as to two little matters--whether or no the man had confederates in waiting at the gate, and whether or no he would make his exit in proper course. He sped so energetically, that, when at last he struck the thickets at the back of the lodge, and, moving cautiously, peered through the trees, he found that he had fairly outrun his quarry and must await its coming. For this purpose no better ambush could offer than the deserted cottage itself. Stepping warily, he moved round by way of the garden he had entered once before, and passed with a little thrill that torn patch in the tangle that remained an intimate mark in his memory. It was with a tickle of nervousness that, as he went by, he paused an instant and, looking down, caught sight of a glint of slimy wall on which the very canker of death seemed to lie in an oily scab.