enough, had no appeal in it for brute instincts, if once let loose in the name of superstition; nor would the fact of the utter seclusion in which the suspect buried himself, and with himself all indications of his real thoughts and habits, save him from a predetermined fate. Religion has hung more men on circumstantial evidence than all the lay tribunals in the world. However, this was in very truth a meeting of trouble half way, since no sign whatever of threatened disturbance had arisen so far to justify in Brion any particular apprehension. Moreover, there was the extenuating fact to consider that he himself was locally popular enough, and that he and the household of the Grange, its master excepted, were regular in their orthodox observances. So he put the thought from him as a mere bugbear of his fancy, and trusted to his own unexceptionable attitude for public absolution. His life during these, for him, uneventful years, had recorded little of interest but the growth of will and tissue, the intelligent, and often excited, watching of affairs, and the ever increasing desire to take some part in the great happenings which were stirring men’s imaginations the world over. As to those, he was at the last solemnly bound and pledged to an enterprise of which he only awaited with impatience the fruition to put his dreams into action. In the meantime he observed with envious admiration how England, for all her distractions, domestic and political, did not stand still, in scared irresolution, before the storms which menaced her, but continued her practices of daring and adventure over all the troubled waters of the globe, even, after her way, snatching immense booty from the very preparations being organised for her destruction. The names of Fox, Cabot, Gilbert, Drake, Frobisher, and other stalwart rovers of the main, rang in his, as in everybody’s ears, and fired him with an enthusiasm to be up and doing, in his own little sphere, what they had so magnificently ensampled in their greater. And he was sworn, as has been said, to his part, if only the plans which were to give him scope for action would come to a head; which at length, towards the close of 1584, they did.