were produced, Hunt sang several songs, aud
Thurtell produced a richly chased gold hunting-
watch, and, taking off the chain, said it was
more fit for a lady, and offered it to Probert for
his wife. Probert declining it, Thurtell put it
round the lady's neck with his own hands. The
ladies retired between twelve and one. The
sleeping accommodation was limited, as
Thurtell's nieces were staying in the house; so that
Hunt arranged to sleep on the sofa, and
Thurtell on some chairs.

In the course of the evening, Thurtell had
asked Addis, the groom, for a pail of water, and
had sponged some spots out of the collar of his
coat. He had also been into the kitchen, and,
with a knife, cut off the chain from his watch.

Several other still more singular occurrences
took place that October night. Mrs. Probert felt
suspicious of the visitors, and alarmed at their
ways and mysterious snatches of talk. A vague
and horrid alarm and fear filled her mind. When
Mrs. Probert retired to bed, soon after twelve,
and Miss Noyes had closed her door, she stole to
the head of the stairs, and leaned cautiously
over the banisters to listen. The talk in the
parlour was in a whisper, growing louder and
more audible at intervals. Her husband and
the unexpected visitors were in conversation.
One said: "I think that will fit you very well,"
as if trying on clothes. There was then a noise
of papers rustling on the table, and the crunching
of paper thrown into the fire.

Hunt said: "Let us take five pounds each."

Another voice then said: "We had a hare
made us a present of coming along; it was
thrown up in the gig on the cushion. We must
tell that to the boy in the morning."

Another voice said: " We had better be off
to town by four or five o'clock in the morning."

John Thurtell replied: "We had better not
go before eight or nine o'clock, the usual time."

After a pause, Thurtell remarked: "What is
the matter, Probert? you seem down in the
mouth; your wife is a-bed and asleep hours ago.
There is no one who has heard or seen anything
this night; indeed, we must not split."

The frightened woman then stole back up
into her room, closed the door, and waited for
further sounds. A few minutes afterwards the
glass doors of the parlour opened, and two of
the men went to the stable with a light. Hunt
held the light, and another brought the horse.
Then they opened the yard gate, and let the horse
out. Some time after this, Mrs. Probert, looking
out of her dressing-room window, heard a
noise in a walk called "The Dark Walk," from
the shrubs that hemmed it in, and saw (it being
a fine moonlight night) a short man dragging
something large and heavy in a sack out of the
Dark Walk towards the pond. There was a hollow
sound, like a heap of stones thrown into a
pit.

When Probert came to bed, about two o'clock,
he found, to his sorrow, his wife sitting still
undressed and crying. He said: "Why, I
thought you were in bed."

She said to him: "Good God! what have
you been about? What have I seen to-night?
What have you been doingâ??you three? You
have been counting money, burning papers, and
dragging something heavy along the garden."

Probert replied:

"Don't make yourself uneasy, Betsy; you
have only seen the netting; we have been
trying to get some game, but there were five
gamekeepers out."

Why was the horse let out of the stable?
Oh, only to carry the netting.

Early on Saturday morning, two labourers,
named Hunt and Herrington, were repairing
Gill's Hill-lane, for Mr. Nicholls, of Batler's
Green, the surveyor of the highway. It
was a bright crystalline October morning,
the yellow leaves drifting gently and silently
down on the narrow lane and the wiry hedgerows,
as the men plied pick and spade, and
plastered and tossed up the mire from the deep
wheel-ruts, where the leaves had gathered; on
the half-dry road the black leaves were printed
by nature's printing, and the cold dew stood in
thick drops on the coarse roadside grass. Two
gentlemen passed them on foot; one was
a short man of a dark complexion, and with
large black whiskers, the other taller, dressed
in a dark coat and a white hat. One of the men
remembered having seen the short dark man
down there before during the summer. They
were a queer suspicious lot of London chaps, a
drinking, noisy, gambling lot, at Gill's Hill
Cottage, they knew, coming down at suspicious
times and leaving in a suspicious way, so the
two men, looking up sullenly from their work,
eyed them with curiosity and distrust. They
passed without speaking, and about ten poles'
distance from the labourers stopped at the side
of the left-hand hedge at the bend of the lane,
and stooped down " grabbling," as if for
something they had lost, among the rustling leaves
and half-stripped brambles. They then walked
a little further, and came back to where Hunt
was busy with his spade. "Good morning,
sir," said Hunt to the taller man in the bruised
white hat.

"You are going to widen this lane, are you
not?'' said the tall man.

Hunt replied, "I am going to try and widen
it where I can, but I am going to trim it up all
through."

The tall man said, "It is a dâ??â?? nasty place,
it is as dark as the grave. As I was coming up
here last evening, I was capsized out of my gig."

"Did you hurt yourself, sir?"

"No, but I lost a silk handkerchief and a
small penknife. I have found them both. I
didn't hurt myself or my horse?"

"Was the gig broken?"

"No, the gig did not fall over, nor did the
horse fall."

"That is a very queer thing to me, sir, that
you should be capsized and your gig not fall."

The two gentlemen then went up the lane
towards the cottage, leaving the labourers to
their speculations on gig accidents and the
queer lot at Probert's.

When the men were at breakfast some time
afterwards, Herrington took his bread and