“That shocked every one.  They were first cousin’s weren’t they?” Mr. Ward was a comparatively new resident in Stillwater.

“First cousins,” replied Lawyer Perkins; “but they were never very intimate, you know.”

“I imagine nobody was ever very intimate with Mr. Shackford.”

“My client was somewhat peculiar in his friendships.”

This was stating it charitably, for Mr. Perkins knew, and every one present knew, that Lemuel Shackford had not had the shadow of a friend in Stillwater, unless it was his cousin Richard.

A cloud of mist and rain was blown into the bar-room as the street door stood open for a second to admit a dripping figure from the outside darkness.

"What’s blowed down?” asked Durgin, turning round on his stool and sending up a ring of smoke which uncurled itself with difficulty in the dense atmosphere.

“It’s only some of Jeff Stavers’s nonsense.”

“No nonsense at all,” said the new-comer, as he shook the heavy beads of rain from his felt hat.  “I was passing by Welch’s Court—­it’s as black as pitch out, fellows—­when slap went something against my shoulder; something like wet wings.  Well, I was scared.  It’s a bat, says I. But the thing didn’t fly off; it was still clawing at my shoulder.  I put up my hand, and I’ll be shot if it wasn’t the foremast, jib-sheet and all, of the old weather-cock on the north gable of the Shackford house!  Here you are!” and the speaker tossed the broken mast, with the mimic sails dangling from it, into Durgin’s lap.

A dead silence followed, for there wa felt to be something weirdly significant in the incident.

“That’s kinder omernous,” said Mr. Peters, interrogatively.

“Ominous of what?” asked Durgin, lifting the wet mass from his knees and dropping it on the floor.

“Well, sorter queer, then.”

“Where does the queer come in?” inquired Stevens, gravelly.  “I don’t know; but I’m hit by it.”

“Come, boys, don’t crowd a feller,” said Mr. Peters, getting restive.  “I don’t take the contract to explain the thing.  But it does seem some way droll that the old schooner should be wrecked so soon after what has happened to the old skipper.  If you don’t see it, or sense it, I don’t insist.  What’s yours, Denyven?”

The person addressed as Denyven promptly replied, with a fine sonorous English accent, “a mug of ‘alf an’ ’alf,—­with a head on it, Snelling.”

At the same moment Mr. Craggie, in the inner room was saying to the school-master,—­

“I must really take issue with you there, Mr. Pinkham.  I admit there’s a good deal in spiritualism which we haven’t got at yet; the science is in its infancy; it is still attached to the bosom of speculation.  It is a beautiful science, that of psychological phenomena, and the spiritualists will yet become an influential class of”—­Mr. Craggie was going to say voters, but glided over it—­“persons.  I believe in clairvoyance myself to a large extent.  Before my appointment to the post-office I had it very strong.  I’ve no doubt that in the far future this mysterious factor will be made great use of in criminal cases; but at present I should resort to it only in the last extremity,—­the very last extremity, Mr. Pinkham!”