Suddenly, now, he glared at the setting sun; then sprang forward to a heap of flints on the roadside, and with trembling hand eagerly selected a large stone, and hugged it up inside the breast of his coat. Then he set off hurriedly--almost at a run--along the road; and walked, walked, at the same pace, into the dusk, into the darkness, under the stars. Now and again he would take out the flint and feel it caressingly; and once he suddenly stopped, and tore off a large piece of his coat, and wrapped the stone in it; and tied his old red handkerchief over that, and put the stone back in his coat. Stumbling along at the same pace, he arrived about ten o'clock at the window of the "Threshing Machine," and peered in; everyone was away that night at a merrymaking in the next village, and Mr. Coffin sat alone in the tap-room. Peter pushed open the tap-room door, and suddenly appeared before Mr. Coffin, who started up in surprise. After a few moments' scrutiny he recognised the changed figure, and advanced and touched its arm, and sat it down in a chair; and went out and returned with some bread and cheese and a mug of ale. Peter pushed away the food and swallowed the pint of ale at a gulp, then held out the mug to be refilled. It was strong ale, not "swipes." Mr. Coffin took the mug and set it down; and while his back was turned Peter seized his untouched glass of hot rum and water and swallowed the liquor. Not once did Peter speak, even in reply; but each time the other turned his back, he would bring out the flint in its wrappings and caress it, and glare at Mr. Coffin. Then suddenly Peter sprang up and tottered out; and Mr. Coffin, after a vain attempt to find him in the darkness outside, mounted his pony and set off for home. He took the lane for the Low Meadow; and after him, keeping on the grass or in the soft mud, crept Peter, caressing the flint stone. [Illustration: "HE WALKED INTO THE DARKNESS."] Mr. Coffin did not return home that night, although his pony did; and the next day he was found on the Low Meadow with his skull fractured and a large sharp flint lying close by; and Peter was found lying face upwards, glaring at the sky through three feet of water, at the spot where tradition said that old Meg was drowned in the time of William the Fourth. The Low Meadow is triply haunted now; and the villagers avoid it after nightfall more carefully than ever. The Unbelievers' Club exists no longer. J. F. SULLIVAN. [Illustration: PAL'S PUZZLE PAGE.] Transcriber's Notes: Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were silently corrected. Punctuation normalized. Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed. Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_. Title page added by transcriber. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strand Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 40, April, 1894, by Various