256
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
the upper platform. A tiny brook that makes its way
among briars and shingle to the more considerable mill-
stream of Redman's Dell, sent up a hoarse babbling from
the darkness beneath. Why exactly he halted there he
could not have said. He glanced over his shoulder down
the steps he had just scaled. Had there been light his
pale face would have shown just then a malign anxiety,
such as the face of an ill-conditioned man might wear, who
apprehends danger of treading on a snake.
He walked on, however, without quickening his pace,
waving very slightly from side to side his ebony walking-
cane — thin as a pencil — as if it were a wand to beckon
away the unseen things that haunt the darkness; and now
he came upon the wider plateau, from which, the close
copse receding, admitted something more of the light, faint
as it was, that lingered in the heavens.
A tall grey stone stands in the centre of this space.
There had once been a boundary and a stile there. Stanley
knew it very well, and was not startled as the attorney
was the other night when he saw it. As he approached
this, some one said close in his ear,
"I beg your pardon, Master Stanley."
He oowered down with a spring, as I can fancy a man
ducking under a round-shot, and glanced speechlessly, and
still in his attitude of recoil, upon the speaker.
"It's only me, Master Stanley — your poor old Tamar.
Don't be afraid, dear."
"I'm not afraid — woman. Tamar to be sure — why,
of course, I know you; but what the devil brings you
here?" he said.
Tamar was dressed just as she used to be when sitting
in the open air at her knitting, except that over her
shoulders she had a thin grey shawl. On her head was
the same close linen nightcap, borderless and skull-like,