THE TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY OF MR.

JOHN OXENHAM OF PLYMOUTH "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew; The furrow follow'd free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea." The Ancient Mariner.
It was too late and too dark last night to see the old house at Stow.

We will look round us, then, this bright October day, while Sir Richard and Amyas, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, are pacing up and down the terraced garden to the south.

Amyas has slept till luncheon, i.e.

till an hour ago: but Sir Richard, in spite of the bustle of last night, was up and in the valley by six o'clock, recreating the valiant souls of himself and two terrier dogs by the chase of sundry badgers.
Old Stow House stands, or rather stood, some four miles beyond the Cornish border, on the northern slope of the largest and loveliest of those combes of which I spoke in the last chapter.