A fresh comer appeared upon the scene at this juncture in the person of Mr. Harry Castlemaine. In passing the inn, he saw signs of the commotion going on, inside and outside, and turned in to see and hear. The various doubts and surmises, agitating the assembly, were poured freely into his ear. "Oh, it's all right--that's what young Dance went up for," said he, speaking lightly. "A day or two ago I chanced to hear him say he wanted to shoot a sea-bird for stuffing." "Well, sir that may be it; no doubt it is, else why should he say it--as I've just asked," replied Ben Little. "But what we'd like to know is--why he should ha' stayed to the little hours of morning before he went out. Why not have went just after dark?" "He may have been busy," said Mr. Harry carelessly. "Or out in the boat." "He wasn't out in the boat last night, sir, for I was talking to him as late as nine o'clock at our door," said young Pike. "The boat couldn't have went out after that and come back again." "Well, I don't think it can concern us whether he went out after this bird a little later or a little earlier; or in fact that it signifies at all which it was, to the matter in question," returned the Master of Greylands' son: and it might have been noticed that his tone bore a smattering of the haughty reserve that sometimes characterised his father's. "The poor fellow has met with the accident; and that's quite enough for him without being worried with queries as to the precise half hour it happened.' "What he says is this here, Mr. Harry: that a great big sea-bird came flying off the sea, flapping its wings above the ruins; Dance cocked his pistol and raised it to take aim, when his elbow struck again' the corner wall there, and the charge went off." "Just so, Ben; that's what Tom Dance tells me," responded Mr. Harry to old Little, for he had been the speaker. "It will be a lesson to him, I dare say, not to go out shooting birds in the dark again." "Not to shoot 'em there, at any rate," rejoined Ben. "The conclusion we've just been and drawed is this here, Mr. Harry, sir: that the Grey Friar's shade appeared to him and set him trembling, and the dratted pistol went off of itself." Mr. Harry's face grew long at once. "Poor fellow! it may have been so," he said: "and that alone would make his account confused. Well, my friends, the least we can do, as it seems to me, is to leave Walter Dance alone and not bother him," he continued in conclusion: and out he went as grave as a judge. Evidently the Grey Friar was not sneered at by Mr. Harry Castlemaine.