Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by Google Books Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=TxsCAAAAQAAJ (Oxford University) THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE. A Novel of Incident. By the Author of "In the Dead of Night," "Brought to Light," etc. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 1880. [_All Rights Reserved_.] CONTENTS OF VOL. I. I. GILBERT DENISON'S WILL. II. MRS. CARLYON AT HOME. III. CAPTAIN LENNOX STARTLED. IV. HERON DYKE AND ITS INMATES. V. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. VI. ONE SNOWY NIGHT. VII. COMING TO DINNER. VIII. AT THE LILACS. IX. THE DOCTOR'S VERDICT. X. A DAY WITH PHILIP CLEEVE. XI. A VISIT FROM MRS. CARLYON. XII. FAREWELL. THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE. CHAPTER I. GILBERT DENISON'S WILL. The First Gentleman in Europe sat upon the throne of his fathers, and the Battle of Waterloo was a stupendous event that still dwelt freshly in men's memories, when one bright August evening, Gilbert Denison, gentleman, of Heron Dyke, Norfolk, lay dying in his lodgings in Bloomsbury Square, London. He was a man of sixty, and, but a few days before he had been full of life, health, and energy. As he was riding into town from Enfield, where he had been visiting some friends, his horse slipped, fell, and rolled heavily over its rider. All had been done for Gilbert Denison that surgical skill could do, but to no avail. His hours were numbered, and none knew that sad fact better than the dying man. But in that strong, rugged, resolute face could not be read any dread of the approaching end. He was a Denison, and no Denison had ever been known to fear anything. By the bedside sat his favourite nephew and heir, whose christian name was also Gilbert. He was a young man of three or four and twenty, with a face which, allowing for the difference in their years, was, both in character and features, singularly like that of his uncle. Gilbert the younger was not, and never had been, a handsome man; but his face was instinct with power: it expressed strength of will, and a sort of high, resolute defiance of Fortune in whatever guise she might present herself. This young man carried a riding-whip in his hand; on a table near lay a pair of buckskin gloves. He wore Hessian boots with tassels, and a bottle-green riding-coat much braided and befrogged. His vest was of striped nankin, and he carried two watches with a huge bunch of seals pendant from each of them; while over the velvet collar of his coat fell his long hair. His throat was swathed in voluminous folds of soft white muslin, tied in a huge bow, and fastened with a small brooch of brilliants. Our young gentleman evidently believed himself to be a diamond of the first water.