The boy was silent awhile. Perhaps he was thinking of kind Mrs Angell, and of Alse, and of what sort of substitute the old witch woman would make for those gentle ministrants. ‘Yes,’ he said presently, ‘I shall like to see Nol porter,’ and was quiet again, turning over something in his mind. ‘Clerivault,’ he said then, ‘was what is in the house, my--my bed, I mean, and the rest of the things, here before we and the others came?’ ‘Narry one, Sir,’ was the answer. ‘The place was as naked as my hand. What thou seest was sent down from his Honour’s house in London. Think not but there’ll be more despatched anon. We’ll have a cosy nest before we’re finished.’ It came to be as he said, indeed, a great cargo of furniture, including many pictures and a quantity of valuable plate and knicknacks, arriving presently by convoy; yet there was never enough, all told, to make more than a scanty show about the house, and to the last the majority of the rooms remained as when Brion first saw them, vacant of everything but dust and spiders. ‘What makes you to ask?’ questioned Clerivault, a little curiously. ‘I was thinking,’ said Brion, ‘of him that lived here before us.’ The man’s countenance fell. ‘Who told you of him?’ ‘It was Gammer Harlock.’ ‘A murrain on her withered tongue!’ exclaimed the other irritably. ‘Lived, lived! Why, what is a house but to live in!’ ‘She told me his name,’ said Brion. ‘It was Matthew Fulk, and he was a sad miser. He has been dead a year and more now; but all during the latter half of his dwelling here she lived with him alone as his servant--only she and none other. This house had been his for twenty years, maybe; and in the first of that time there was a young maid, his niece, that abode with him. But her he murdered, and cast her body down the well in the well-house, and gave out that she had gone off with one of the rebel troopers that marched to the siege of Exeter in the time of the great riots.’ ‘And why should she not have?’ The pupils of Clerivault’s eyes stared like a cat’s. ‘Because,’ said Brion, ‘after his death they would cleanse the well of its foulness, seeing the water had rotted there undrawn since the maid was lost; and in its slime were found bones--human bones, Clerivault.’ ‘More liker some dog’s or sheep’s,’ said the other scornfully. ‘Why should he murder her?’ ‘Because the devil whom he served asked a sacrifice of him.’ Clerivault snorted. ‘Ah, hold your peace! This is the very lunacy of superstition. I knew the man, Sir--was here with him on legal business four, or it may be five years ago, and plumbed his very soul. A gripping, sour-lidded curmudgeon: but murder! He feared the law too much. These be old wives’ tales, and she who utters them a potion-brewing witch. Give her no credit, I entreat you.’ Brion did not answer, pursuing his own train of thought. ‘Clerivault,’ said he in a little, ‘it must be long since my Uncle dwelt here.’ ‘How?’ asked the other.