Year: 1872

try to find out what she knows about the hor
rible things she hints al"


Captain Player drew stool up to the cor
ner of the hut where the old woman had
fallen, and where she now lay moaning. and
shivering, and sought to arouse her by hand
and voice; but beyond moan, and, now and
then, an undistinguishable word, uttered in
low voice, too low and broken to be under
stood, all his efforts were in vain. After about
a quarter of an hour spent in futile attempts
to arouse her and obtain some answer to his
interrogatories, he arose, dejectedly, and aban-
doned the attempt.


"How long has her mind been disordered in
this manner?" asked Captain Player of the
nurse. "Was she ever affected in this way be-
fore Mrs. Galloways disappearance"


"No massa; we found her in the woods the
very day Miss Matilda been gone, carrying on
wild, just like you see her now and Mossa
bring her over here, and put me to mind her.
She is an old woman, but she never been so
before"


"And she talks about blood, and George,
and the dairy.house- ?"


"She wind up wild dat always; but she don't
know what she talk about, mossa."


"God grant it~ calculated Captain Player,
with very sad face; and, after giving the
woman some little present of tobacco, he left
the hut, remounted his horse and logged on
slowly in silence, by footpath through the
copse, and soon fell in with the squad of men
who had been securing the woods under his
guidance. After brief consultation, he led
the way along bride path, until the party
came to pair of bars which opened into
wooded enclosure. Entering this enclosure,
the party, consisting of some six or eight
besides himself, halted upon ridge Of land,
from which, through the trees, they could
catch glimpses of the roof and gables of the
mansion house, two or three hundred yards
before them. To their left, in deep hollow,
far below the level on which they stood, lay
the dairy.house, with an ever running foun-
tain on the hillside above it, the water from
which, after being conducted in troughs
through the dairy-house, could be seen issuing
from the spouts below, and flowing on to join
a babbling brook that wound through the
hollow, few rods below. Captain Player
guided his horse into narrow path that
wound down the steep declivity, and closely
followed by the party, dismounted at the
spring. While the others, weary and thirsty,
were enjoying draught from the crystal
spring, tht hale old farmer, upon whose mind
the incoherent words of the frenzied old wo-
man exercised deeper influence than he him.
self was conscious of, walked around to the
door of the dairy-house, which was on the op-
posite or lower side. He had, at first, no
thought of making an examination of the
place. Knowing the intellect of the old wo-
man to be disordered, and aware that the Wild
est dreams suggested by passing events fash
through the ruined mind and give form and
shape to its extravagant conceits, he thrust
aside the fears and suspicious that her wild ex-
clamations were calculated to engender.
With very vague sense of his own purpose,
he strolled around to the door of the dairy
house, and gently pushed it. He really had
no expectation of making any discovery tend
ing to throw any light upon the object of his
search. His object was rather to convince
himself of the folly of attaching any impor-
tance to the wild rawlings of maniac. The
door resisted the pressure Of his hand, for it
was securely locked. He now really became
desirous of seeing the interior, in order to sat-
isfy himself that there were no dark stains
within, telling of violence and bloodshed.


"Pshaw" said he to himself, halfdisposed
to turn away, "This is itself madness, to let
the words of a crazy old negro influence me"
and he turned offand made a step or two and
then returned, and again tried the lock to see
if it was quite secure. This time he glanced
down at the door,sill and started with an ex-
clamation of surprise, for it was actually
sprinkled with blood and one or two large
splotches lay there staining the sill with its
dark crimson. The earth in front of the door
had been lately removed, and the cavity filled
in with fresh sand and gravel, which had not
yet settled down or been trodden under foot.


"Here, menp called he, as he stepped
around the corner and beckoned to the party
that were quenching their thirst at the spring,
"here, at last, is something that may give us
clue" The party gathered at the door,
and eager eyes and earnest faces we're busy in
examining those dark crimson stains that
seemed to grow yet deeper and darker beneath
their startled gaze,


"We had better send for the dairy key"
suggested one of the party.


"Break the door down." said Captain Play.
er, pointing to heavy billet of wood that lay
near. Break it down! Don't stand on cere-
mony when there is proof like that. The old
lunatic was, perhaps, right after all Break
it down, and let US see if the poor creature
was not done to death here"


Thus urged, two younger men of the party
gathered up billet of wood and employing
it as battering ram, at the second blow the
bolt flew from its staple and the door swung
back on its hinges. To the right and the left,
on either side, extending the whole length of
the house, we're shallow troughs through which
the water from the spring flowed, and found
vent through spouts that conducted it from
the building on its lower side. The entire
space between the two troughs was filled up
with dry sand and gravel, and beaten hard
by the feet of those passing to and fro, atten-
ding to the pans of milk that were generally
set in the troughs on either side. There were