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of Matthew Marstoke, and the pleasant style in which he lived during the short stay I used to make at his house in Kent, quite made an impression on me. I remembered, too, his easy disposition, and the frequent invitations he used to give me to return and visit him, and more than all, I remembered the riches he was possessed of, and the tales he used to tell me of the moneys he had no use for, the chests of plate in his lumber-room, and the bags of gold which he said had lain uncounted for years beneath his bed. In short, I resolved to visit Matthew Marstoke, and setting out for Kent, arrived at Sandwich, and found he was absent from the house he used to dwell in, and living then at another place he possessed at Wingham.'

I know the house well,' said Oldcraft; it has a row of poplartrees before it. I've visited him myself there. I remember, also, his dwelling in the town of Sandwich, it's the great house in the market-place, stands at one end-a large red-brick building. Diccon Grasp, our agent, was on one side, and Master Hogsflesh, the mayor, lived on the other.'

'I took that house,' resumed Greville, for Marstoke had removed from it in consequence of its being haunted, and dreadful sounds were heard all night long. I took that house, after staying with Marstoke for a fortnight, and became his tenant. Meanwhile Marstoke, I must tell you, had grown quite demented (I may say, almost silly). He had fallen into bad health, and was paralytic withal. He was delighted at my coming to see him, as he was ever at war with his domestics, who, he said, were eating him up alive, and killing him by inches, so that ĺ became (as you may suppose) in a short time master of his whole establishment, and lived at free quarters, kept all his relatives at a distance, cudgelled some of his domestics, kicked others out of the place, and made quite a reformation in the household, till at last the old man was fain to consult me on the subject of destroying his old, and making a new will. You may easily suppose I did not lend a deaf ear to the suggestion, more especially as I naturally supposed he meant to make me his heir, after all the service I had rendered him. To my surprise and anger, however, I found, when we came to be closeted together, that he had a daughter living at Ghent, whom he had long discarded for marrying after her own inclinations, and against his; and that having cut her off whilst his resentment lasted, and which had endured full thirty years, he was now relenting, and wishing for her return before he died; and so, having entrusted to me the task of writing to tell her of his forgiveness, he also gave me full instructions to make a will in her favour, never so much as naming me for a legacy therein.' 'Ho! ho!' laughed Oldcraft. I should like to have seen thy hatchet-face at that moment. Your finger strayed towards the poniard at your girdle, I dare be sworn.'

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Not a whit, man; I swore a deep revenge for being thus paltered with, and resolved upon a scheme which I quickly put in practice.' What! you filched the bags from beneath the bed, I suppose, advertised the hungry relatives of the old man's intentions, and turned them loose again upon him, aye? had him regularly torn to pieces by his own kith and kin.'

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'Not that, either,' said Greville; and here begins the story of my present discomfort.'

Begins!' said his auditor. Why, man, I thought this preamble of thine was beginning, middle, and end.'

'You shall hear; but give me more wine, for the story chokes me

in the utterance. I laid the plot thus: I invited Marstoke to spend the Christmas week with me at Sandwich. The town was just then all alive. The threatened invasion of the Spaniard made folks full of preparation. Sandwich, you know, is one of the Cinque Ports, and consequently a place of some importance. Meetings were therefore daily called, soldiers quartered upon the inhabitants; merchants, noblemen, and gentry, vying with each other in fitting out ships at their own charge, and troops were constantly passing and repassing along the coast. I attended these meetings, entered heart and hand into all the proceedings; offered my services to join the expedition, and appeared as forward as any there. Meanwhile, one only thought possessed me wholly, which was how to get Marstoke's riches into my possession, and dispose safely of the old man. Murder was upon my mind day and night; and until the deed was effected, I felt I could get neither respite nor rest. Just Heaven! little did I dream then the state of mind this deed would reduce me to when perpetrated. In short, the invasion, as you know, was deferred, Christmas arrived, and Marstoke was my guest in the old house at Sandwich. Amongst the soldiers, sailors, artisans, and men-at-arms, who crowded the town, I sought out and hired two servants, fellows "out of suits with fortune," and whom I had good reason to know were fit for any work I chose to put them to, and worthy of trust, if properly treated and rewarded. On Christmas-day I feasted several of the inhabitants of the town, and we kept up the revel till daybreak next morning. You will, therefore, easily conceive it was not a very extraordinary circumstance that old Marstoke should be taken suddenly unwell and confined to his bed,-nay, so sick was he that I thought it but expedient he should make his will as he had before intended.'

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'Ah! ah!' said Oldcraft. What, you drugged his posset for him, aye? and tampered with the roast-beef and plum-pudding? put ratsbane in the sweet-sauce? Ah! you're a cunning fellow, Greville; but you've no head for these matters.'

'Not so,' said Greville; I gave out Marstoke was seriously ill; and on the third night after our Christmas feast, when all the town were wrapped in slumber, I turned the two fellows I have named into his room, with directions to strangle him in his bed. Accursed be the hour in which I conceived the deed! Never shall I forget the horrors of that night; what with wind and rain, I thought the old town would have been levelled with the earth before morning dawned. As I watched beside the old man's chamber-door, whilst the deed was being perpetrated, I heard his struggles as the villains strangled him in his bed. With morning's dawn (for I had lain upon my bed, where I had first thrown myself, like some terrified urchin in the darkness), I somewhat recovered my self-possession, and reflecting that the worst act in this hideous drama was over, proceeded towards the consummation of my plot. With some little difficulty I screwed up my courage, and ascending the stairs, approached Marstoke's room. It was long, however, before I could muster courage to open the door. I feared to see the old man's ghastly corpse on the floor where I had heard him fall, and stood with my hand on the lock, like one suffering in the agony of some hideous dream, unable alike to go forward or retreat. At length, after some hours of this irresolution, I was aroused to the necessity of exertion by the sound of the two scoundrels I had thus employed knocking at the outer gate for admittance, and the opening of the maid-servant's door in a remote part of the house, as she answered to their summons.

Summoning, then, all my energies, I entered the apartment, and rushing to the bell-rope, pulled it violently, calling at the same time to the maid to desire one of the men-servants instantly to take horse, and hurry over to Wingham for Marstoke's lawyer, as he was so much worse that he desired instantly to make his will.

Meanwhile, before the scrivener came, I conveyed Diccon Web, the other man, into the bed with the dead body, and drawing the curtains close round them (the room at the same time being darkened, I directed him to groan like one in great pain, and, counterfeiting at the same time the old man's voice, answer any questions the lawyer might put so as to manage to leave the bulk of his property to me, stopping any inordinate curiosity and compunctious visitings of the scrivener by a heavy legacy in his favour. We managed matters so well that all was effected without interruption or suspicion. Web, counterfeiting old Marstoke's voice, and seemingly hardly able to give directions as to how the will should be made, disposed of his estate in my favour; after which, desiring to repose himself from the exertion, the company assembled were requested, by desire of the apparently dying man, to leave him to his repose. Soon after which, spreading the news of his death throughout the house, and calling the servants up, I showed them the corpse as if just departed in his bed. But the worst is yet to come. I succeeded to the estate; but the remorse I suffered was so great that I could not bear to live in the neighbourhood; my two new houses I would have been thankful to any one to have fired and burnt to the very ground. I grew nervous and frightened at my own shadow. The countenance of old Marstoke, and his cry to me for assistance, haunted me day and night. The two scoundrels, Web and Basset, too, began to grow upon me, and the constant sight of them was as basilisks unto mine eyes. I feared to part with them; and to keep them was ruinous; they spent what money they listed, robbed me to my face, and one of them in his cups affirmed amongst his companions that it was in his power to hang his master any day in the week. Basset, the other fellow, informing me of this, I became so seriously troubled that I resolved to fly the place, and, in order to prevent any danger of further babbling, managed matters with Basset so as to have Web closely made away. To effect this, I settled with them both to precede me to London; and sending them on the night before I intended myself to set out, gave direction to Basset to deal with Web on the road. Basset followed his orders, but did the deed somewhat earlier than I had intended. He stabbed his comrade through the back as they rode side by side along the Sandwich flats, and, dismounting, threw his body into the haven. The waters washing it up to Sandwich early next morning with the tide, to my horror and confusion it was brought to my house just as I was about to set forward on my own journey; so that I found myself obliged to attend the mayor during the inquiry about the rascal's death, and even agree with the magistrates as to the propriety of sending out a party to overtake and capture Basset for the suspected murder. This new mishap almost unsettled my wits; and the officers having luckily failed in capturing Basset, I hurried from the town two days afterwards, and the whole county being just then engaged in preparation for the armada, I joined the forces assembled at Tilbury Fort under command of the Earl of Leicester. Could I have safely joined the Spaniards I would have done so. As it was, I sought in the bustle of the camp, and the

pomp and circumstance of war, to forget the horrible transactions I had been engaged in; but it would not be. That which filled the minds of all around with enthusiasm was by me uncared for. The glorious sight of a Queen heading her armies in the field, and riding through the lines to exhort the soldiery to remember their duty to their country, avowing her intention herself to lead us against the enemy, and perish rather than survive the ruin and slavery of her people, was lost upon a wretch whose nights and days were passed in agonising remorse. The very din of the engagement, and the turmoil and bustle accompanying the destruction of the armada; the shrieks of the dying, the shouts of the victors, the thunder of the cannon, was all, I found, as nothing. I walked the deck of my own ship, and even boarded the enemy's craft, with the ghastly countenance of old Marstoke continually before me wherever I turned; so that I resolved more than once to surrender myself on the return of the fleet, and confessing all the villany of my life, end my sinful career upon the gallows.'

How then stands the matter with you at the present moment?" said Oldcraft, now fully interested in his companion's tale. Speak, man, quickly. You said even now the business was blown. What leads you to think so?'

The news,' answered Greville,' which reached me yesterday before I left London (where I had been keeping close) of Basset's having been arrested at Faversham, and committed to jail on suspicion of Web's murder. I fled on the instant, and behold I am here in my extremity. The guilty man, covering his face with his hands, sobbed aloud as he finished his story, and in his agony and remorse called upon his more cool, and, apparently even more hardened companion,

for counsel and advice

'Give me comfort, Oldcraft,' he said, 'for I feel the hand of heaven is so heavy upon me that I cannot live under the burthen of my crimes. Death seems hovering at my heart, and yet I cannot die. Nay, there is the smell of death even in this apartment where we sit. Methinks it is my grave.'

Prophetic are thy words,' said Oldcraft, suddenly bringing round his right arm, and firing one of Greville's own pistols into his breast, shattering his lungs to pieces with the closeness of the discharge, Prophetic are thy words, fool! for 'tis thy grave.'

The wretched victim, uttering a cry of agony as the life-blood flowed out in one gushing tide, fell with his face upon the hearth a ghastly corpse, as his executioner, starting to his feet, dashed his pipe to the further end of the apartment.

"Twas time, indeed, to look to this gear,' he said, as he pounced upon the quivering body, and turning it on its back proceeded to ransack the pockets of the doublet in search of his papers, which he hurriedly thrust into the fire without examining. Twas time, indeed, to stop this driveller's mouth, or, by the Lord, I should have been involved in his cursed confessions up to the ears. Former transactions, as well as more recent pastimes, would have doubtless come out before he had made an end of his shrift. What ho! there! Help! murder! help ho! Here, Stephen! Robin! James! help here!' he continued, calling aloud, and at the same time drawing Greville's sword from the scabbard, and throwing it beside the body. After which he stepped to the door, and threw it wide open. Help here! Arise, I say! I am assailed in my own house!'

Behold!' he cried, as the terrified servants, awakened by the report of the pistol, and his cries, hurried half-naked from their beds.

This caitiff, not content with trying to extort money from me on this blessed night, suddenly attacked me sword in hand, and would have murdered me had I not luckily possessed myself of one of his pistols, and shot him dead.'

A deep and awful silence, only interrupted by the occasional rattle of the snow-storm upon the casements, and the fitful gusts of the winter's wind, reigned in Marstoke House for the remainder of that night. The serving-men and maids who had been summoned from their beds by Master Oldcraft's cries, and the report of the pistol, were huddled together in the kitchen of the building, where, over the fire they had coaxed back into life, they discussed in fearful whispers the suspicions and surmises to which this strange transaction gave rise.

In those days of rapier and dagger, the matter of a man slain in a country mansion was not of such rare occurrence as to cause any very great confusion or dismay. Yet still, a death so oddly come by as this inan's, having been shot through the lungs in the dead of night, and on the very hearth, too, where he had so short a time before been seen draining the cup of kindness with his host, did not altogether pass current without its comment.

Meanwhile, the principal actor in this hideous drama paced up and down the ample chamber, to which he had retired after having given orders that the body of his victim should be left exactly as it had been discovered by the servants on his summoning them to his assistance.

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My star, he said, as he communed with himself upon the deed he had just perpetrated, my star is yet in the ascendant. My good angel, or evil, if you will-for I care not though the very devil himself despatched this miserable driveller hitherward, has this night put it in my power, by one bold stroke, to rid myself of the distrust and anxiety I have so long felt on his account, and by putting a seal upon his lips for ever, for ever rid me, also, of my fears.'

This self-congratulation of Master Oldcraft's was suddenly interrupted by the clatter of horses' feet passing rapidly beneath his chamber-window. He paused in his soliloquy, and instantly extinguished the lamp which was burning upon the table beside his bed, and stepping to the window, cautiously drew back one of the sliding-shutters, and gently opening the casement, looked forth.

The day was just breaking, and he beheld a small party of some halfa-dozen horsemen turn the angle of the building as they rode into the fore-court. He was only just in time to catch a glimpse of their shining hauberks as they disappeared round one of the flanking towers of the old mansion in their way to the principal entrance.

Marstoke House had formerly (in the early part of Harry the Eighth's reign) been a religious establishment, and inhabited by a fraternity of Carmelites. It was at the present time only partially inhabited, as Master Oldcraft and his small establishment occupied but a part of one wing; and being much discountenanced and disliked in the neighbourhood, the place had a deserted and melancholy appearance at the best of times. On that side of the building which was occupied at the bottom of the garden stood a large water-mill, and which had in other times pertained to the monastery. It was at present in the occupation of one Jenden, a miller, who carried on business there. In the park or meadow-land beyond this mill were numerous fish-ponds, beautifully shadowed by overhanging branches of the enormous trees, and intersected by innumerable narrow divisions or walks, made for the purpose of netting and draining these stews. Indeed

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