publicly complimented in this sense, when managing Lord Hedgerow's
estate. No man had, I believe, a higher reputation in his walk--few men
were more formidable. I think it was Lawyer Larkin's private canon, in
his dealings with men, that everything was moral that was not contrary to
an Act of Parliament.




CHAPTER LIV.

BRANDON CHAPEL ON SUNDAY.


For a month and three days Mr. Jos. Larkin was left to ruminate without
any new light upon the dusky landscape now constantly before his eyes. At
the end of that time a foreign letter came for him to the Lodge. It was
not addressed in Mark Wylder's hand--not the least like it. Mark's was a
bold, free hand, and if there was nothing particularly elegant, neither
was there anything that could be called vulgar in it. But this was a
decidedly villainous scrawl--in fact it was written as a self-educated
butcher might pen a bill. There was nothing impressed on the wafer, but a
poke of something like the ferrule of a stick.

The interior corresponded with the address, and the lines slanted
confoundedly. It was, however, on the whole, better spelled and expressed
than the penmanship would have led one to expect. It said--


'MISTER LARKINS,--Respeckted Sir, I write you, Sir, to let you know has