“And that he is, in a way. He settled, when he retired from the service, in Winchester, where his regiment used to lie. And there he eats out his heart, like Sir Thingumbob in the Tower, planning what he would have done if the old stone had rounded off his jointure. It was valued at £70,000, if you can believe him.” “A melancholy story. How the wind rises!--And who was the gallows-bird he referred to?” CHAPTER XIV. Sir David ladled out into fresh glasses from the dregs of the jorum. “A toast!” said he, the leaping candle-light making a shifting grotesque of his wholesome young face. “Here’s to the memory of the last tenant o’ ‘Delsrop,’ and the health of the new one!” “With all my heart. How was the beggar called? He hath entailed me a legacy of weeds. Was _he_ the gallows-bird?” The visitor spoke in jest, and was surprised to have, “Aye, that he was,” for answer. “Great heavens!” he exclaimed. The baronet flung himself back in his chair with a chuckle. “You little expected that,” said he. “But there’s a reservation I’ll own to. They strung him up after he was dead.” He went into a fit of laughter over the other’s astonished expression. “I see you are unacquainted with the tale,” he said. “’Tis a tattered old boggart of the past that the neighbourhood has years-long ceased to throw stones at. But, you’ll pardon me, Tuke. What the devil induced you to invest in those ragged acres yonder?” “I didn’t. I succeeded to them.” “Direct?” “Certainly.” He had hesitated in answering. The little man gazed at him inquisitively. “You are--you are not in mourning,” he said. “For my father? Scarcely. He died in ’80. A widow even may be excused for doffing black in twenty years.” “I see. You are an absentee landlord. Fie, sir! We hold you responsible thereby for many a pretty ghost tale.” He answered jocosely; but he was looking at the other with a certain ruminative wonder. “Twenty years,” he murmured. “Why, then, your father must have stepped straight into old Turk’s shoes.” “The former tenant? Was that his name?” “Turk--yes.” He was still engulfed in retrospect. His eyes were fixed, unwinking, like a doll’s. “Well,” he said at last--sucking at the stem of his “church-warden” as if he were a baby ravenous for its “comforter”--“it fair upsets me, it does.” “What does?” “How you can ’a let a fruitful estate like that go to wrack and ruin for twenty years.” Mr. Tuke was silent. Had he spoken, and the truth, he could only have echoed the other’s wonder. As it was, his mouth was tied to an adequate explanation. Blythewood blew away the problem with a cloud of smoke. “We’ve got you at last, anyhow,” he said. “And that’s nine points of the law. I’ll wager you don’t know, sir, whence your house gets its name.” “I can’t take you. You’re right.”