of the minister and Coristine.  With all their might and main paddled the Captain and Ben.  Joyfully, all the company saw stretch after stretch of the lake behind them, until, at last, they passed the fishermen and landed on the shore.  The minister and the lawyer laid their coats upon the boards of the log shelter, and placed their burden upon them.  “Let him sleep a bit,” said Mr. Errol to the mad woman; “let him sleep, and you help my friend to get a few flowers to take home with him.”  So Coristine took his candle-box from the floor of the punt, and, with his strange companion, gathered the skullcaps and loose-strifes and sundews that grew by the shore.  She knew the flowers and where to find them, and filled the lawyer’s improvised vasculum almost to overflowing with many a new specimen.  He only took them to humour her, for what cared he for all the flowers that bloom when death, and such a death, was but a few yards away.

Ben Toner brought the fishers back with two good strings of fish; but, when they heard the story, they threw them into the lake.  Ben was a handy man.  He cut down two stout poles, and with leather wood bark constructed a litter, light but strong.  On this the sleeping detective was laid, and while Mr. Errol and the Captain stumbled through the ground hemlock on either side of the now cheerful mad woman, the other four carried their ghastly load, with scalding tears streaming from every eye.  “S’haylp me,” said Ben to the lawyer, “ef I don’t hunt the man as killed him till he dies or me.”  After a painful journey they reached the Richards’ house, and Richards was at home.  Mr. Perrowne told him all about it, and the brave fellow answered:—­

“Bring it in here, passon; we’ve a place to put it in where it’ll be safe till they send for it.  I ain’t scared, not I. You know my four boys in your club; they’ve all got guns and can use ’em, and I’ve got mine to boot.”  So, they left the body there, and persuaded the sister to come with them on their six mile walk home.  It was seven o’clock before they had accomplished half the journey, and had been met by the representatives of an anxious household, the Squire and his father-in-law, the latter with rifle in hand, prepared for action.  The first joy at beholding them safe and sound was damped by the news they brought.  As soon as Carruthers could recover himself he spoke to the weird woman and invited her to come and rest at Bridesdale.  Then he hastened on ahead to warn his wife and sister, and make arrangements for the reception of the strange visitor.  When the party arrived at the house they found a large company, young and old, assembled to meet them, for, in addition to the doctor and his daughter, there was Mrs. Du Plessis with her daughter on one side, and, in all its soldierly dignity, the tall form of Colonel Morton on the other.  The lawyer also noticed the ebon countenance of Mr. Maguffin peering over the palings in the direction of the stables.