"It won't take longer nor that to tell. Why, I've told it in ten minutes, I have. It's freezer to the blood. A murder at night, too," added Dick, in an agony lest Tait should go away, "with a lantern and a corpse--just like you read in novels." "Hm!" observed Tait skeptically, not yet being sure of the man. "Is it true?" "True as gospel, sir. I wouldn't tell a lie, I wouldn't. I've been brought up Methody, you know, sir, and scorn a falsehood as a snare of the Old 'Un. You make it worth Dicky's while, sir, and he'll give you goose flesh. Oh, that he will." "Very good," said Tait, throwing himself on the sward. "I don't mind hearing the legend of this place. If it is as good as you say I'll give you half a sovereign." "In gold?" asked Dick, with a grasping eagerness. "In bright gold. See! here is the half sovereign. You tell the story and it is yours. Now, then, what is it all about?" Dick Pental sat down beside Tait, but at some distance away, and chuckled as he rubbed his hands. He had a chance of making twelve-and-sixpence that morning, and was overjoyed at his good fortune. Resolved to begin with a startling remark, he glanced down to see that they were alone, and then brought it out. "I could hang a man, I could," he said cheerfully. "I could hang him till he was a deader." CHAPTER XXXIII. THE STORY OF THE MAD GARDENER. HAVING made this startling announcement, Dick Pental drew back to observe the effect on his hearer. Humoring the man's vanity, Tait expressed due surprise, and requested him to narrate the circumstance to which he referred. "It is about twenty-five years ago, it is," said Dick, commencing his tale in a great hurry; "and I was the gardener here to Captain Larcher. You don't know him, sir; it aint to be expected as you should. He was a grown gentleman before you were, and a kind 'un he was; took me out of the asylum, he did. They said I was mad, you know, and put me into a strait waistcoat; but I wasn't a bit wrong in my head, sir, not I. Captain Larcher he saw that, so he took me out and made me his gardener. And aint I done a lot for the place? just you look round and see." "Your work is admirable, Dick." "It is that," replied the man with _naïve_ vanity, "and you aint the first as has said that, sir. Oh, I'm fond of the garden, I am; flowers are much nicer company than human beings, I think. Not so cross with Dicky, you know, sir." "No doubt," said Tait, seeing that the creature was following the wanderings of his poor wits. "But about this murder you----" "I didn't know anything was wrong," interrupted the gardener earnestly; "I'd have kept out of the way if I'd known that; but I came here one night when I shouldn't have been here." "How was that?"