’And, respecting that money you’ll use caution; a hundred guineas is not always so honestly come by.  Your wife drinks—­suppose a relative in England had left you that gold, by will, ’twould be best not to let her know; but give it to Dr. Walsingham, secretly, to keep for you, telling him the reason.  He’ll undertake the trust and tell no one—­that’s your plan—­mind ye.’

Then came another long silence, and Dangerfield applied himself in earnest to catch some trout, and when he had accomplished half-a-dozen, he tired altogether of the sport, and followed by Irons, he sauntered homewards, where astounding news awaited him.

CHAPTER LIII.

RELATING AFTER WHAT FASHION DR. STURK CAME HOME.

As Dangerfield, having parted company with Irons at the corner of the bridge, was walking through the town, with his rod over his shoulder and his basket of troutlings by his side, his attention was arrested by a little knot of persons in close and earnest talk at the barrack-gate, nearly opposite Sturk’s house.

He distinguished at a glance the tall grim figure of Oliver Lowe, of Lucan, the sternest and shrewdest magistrate who held the commission for the county of Dublin in those days, mounted on his iron-gray hunter, and holding the crupper with his right hand, as he leaned toward a ragged, shaggy little urchin, with naked shins, whom he was questioning, as it seemed closely.  Half-a-dozen gaping villagers stood round.

There was an indescribable something about the group which indicated horror and excitement.  Dangerfield quickened his pace, and arrived just as the adjutant rode out.

Saluting both as he advanced, Dangerfield asked—­

‘Nothing amiss, I hope, gentlemen?’

‘The surgeon here’s been found murdered in the park!’ answered Lowe.

‘Hey—­Sturk?’ said Dangerfield.

‘Yes,’ said the adjutant:  ’this boy here says he’s found him in the Butcher’s Wood.’

‘The Butcher’s Wood!—­why, what the plague brought him there?’ exclaimed Dangerfield.

‘’Tis his straight road from Dublin across the park,’ observed the magistrate.

’Oh!—­I thought ‘twas the wood by Lord Mountjoy’s,’ said Dangerfield; ‘and when did it happen?’

‘Pooh!—­some time between yesterday afternoon and half an hour ago,’ answered Mr. Lowe.

‘Nothing known?’ said Dangerfield. ’’Twill be a sad hearing over the way;’ and he glared grimly with a little side-nod at the doctor’s house.

Then he fell, like the others, to questioning the boy.  He could tell them but little—­only the same story over and over.  Coming out of town, with tea and tobacco, a pair of shoes, and a bottle of whisky, for old Mrs. Tresham—­in the thick of the wood, among brambles, all at once he lighted on the body.  He could not mistake Dr. Sturk; he wore his regimentals; there was blood about him; he did not touch him, nor go nearer than a musket’s length to him, and being frightened at the sight in that lonely place he ran away and right down to the barrack, where he made his report.