“But what do you want?  What did you come here for at this hour?” persisted the man.

“What!  Aye, that is it; why, his boots and spurs, to be sure.  I forgot them.  His—­his—­Sir Wynston’s boots and spurs; I forgot to take them, I say,” said Merton, looking toward the dressing room, as if about to enter it.

“Don’t mind them tonight, I say, don’t go in there,” said the man, peremptorily, and getting out upon the floor.  “I say, Mr. Merton, this is no hour to be going about searching in the dark for boots and spurs.  You’ll waken the master.  I can’t have it, I say; go down, and let it be for tonight.”

Thus speaking, in a resolute and somewhat angry under-key, the valet stood between Merton and the entrance of the dressing-room; and, signing with his hand toward the other door of the apartment, continued—­

“Go down, I say, Mr. Merton, go down; you may as well quietly, for, I tell you plainly, you shall neither go a step further, nor stay here a moment longer.”

The man drew his shoulders up, and made a sort of shivering moan, and clasping his hands together, shook them, as it seemed, in great agony.  He then turned abruptly, and hurried from the room by the door leading to the kitchen.

“By my faith,” said the servant, “I am glad he is gone.  The poor chap is turning crazy, as sure as I am a living man.  I’ll not have him prowling about here anymore, however; that I am resolved on.”

In pursuance of this determination, by no means an imprudent one, as it seemed, he fastened the door communicating with the lower apartments upon the inside.  He had hardly done this, when he heard a step traversing the stable-yard, which lay under the window of his apartment.  He looked out, and saw Merton walking hurriedly across, and into a stable at the farther end.

Feeling no very particular curiosity about his movements, the man hurried back to his bed.  Merton’s eccentric conduct of late had become so generally remarked and discussed among the servants, that Sir Wynston’s man was by no means surprised at the oddity of the visit he had just had; nor, after the first few moments of doubt, before the appearance of blood had been accounted for, had he entertained any suspicions whatever connected with the man’s unexpected presence in the room.  Merton was in the habit of coming up every night to take down Sir Wynston’s boots, whenever the baronet had ridden in the course of the day; and this attention had been civilly undertaken as a proof of good-will toward the valet, whose duty this somewhat soiling and ungentlemanlike process would otherwise have been.  So far, the nature of the visit was explained; and the remembrance of the friendly feeling and good offices which had been mutually interchanged, as well as of the inoffensive habits for which Merton had earned a character for himself, speedily calmed the uneasiness, for a moment amounting to actual alarm, with which the servant had regarded his appearance.