Tom Gallon

“ You'll help me, won't you? You're bigger and stronger than I am—and I——”
“Yes, a great deal bigger and stronger, I'm afraid,” said Jack, with a sigh. “But come along, we'd better get it over, I suppose.” And together they marched hand in hand into the big hall.
[Illustration: “CHILD—I AM THE MAN WHO HAS STOLEN YOUR CASTLE.”]
Jack Dalwyn noticed, in a moody, foolish fashion, that the dying fire seemed to leap up into renewed brightness as the boy came in; that the frowning pictures on the walls took on an aspect less grim, and seemed to strive, in their stiff fashion, to welcome the child. ”

“ The originals must have been quite young when the portraits were painted—mere babies, in fact, although the boy had a gallant little riding-coat on, and the girl, for all her smiling, childish face, the long, straight, demure gown of a woman.
“And who were you, I wonder?” muttered Jack Dalwyn, coming to a halt before them. “Did your merry laughter ring through these old rooms? Perhaps—who knows?—you've danced in the firelight here many and many a time. Poor babies, even you would understand the trick of the business better than I do. ”

“ The county people who call upon me are civil only in proportion to the weight of my dead father's money-bags. A miserable usurper, without even the grace to wear his honours decently; a gentleman in name—a thing that sprang up like a mushroom in a night!”
In his restless impatience he got up again and strode up and down the hall. A shaft of moonlight, coming suddenly in at an upper window, shone full upon two pictures, more modern in tone and colouring than the others—the pictures of two children, a boy and a girl. ”

“ There's plenty of room in this place, you know, and I beg that you will make yourself quite at home—for the present, at least.”
“Thank you,” said Jack. “I'm sure it's very kind of you, and I'll endeavour not to trouble you more than I can help. Perhaps you would like to retire now; your room has been prepared.”
With exaggerated courtesy they bade each other good-night, and Jack Dalwyn was left alone. For hours he sat before the fire, drawing mental pictures of many things. He felt again the sleeping child's unconscious touch upon his neck, when he had lifted her from the settle in the inn. ”

“ Josiah Hankey, a man of law, who had transacted Jack Dalwyn's business, and that of his father before him; the other was a certain Mistress Aurora Pepper, the old nurse mentioned by the boy, who had left the castle only when the children had been sent to school, and who had been in constant communication with them ever since. Some of the servants had been able to tell where she lodged, and the messenger received orders, coupled with fearful threats, to bring her back, alive or dead.
Travelling in those days took time, and horses, even of the fastest, had to be cared for. ”

“ It is yours again, never to be lost to you while you live. Your old friends are about you, and you need never fear that anyone will try again to steal from you the place of which you should be so proud. The time will come when you will understand these things better, and will learn to forgive—The Man who Stole the Castle.”
He folded the note, addressed it to “Sir Leonard Elverton,” and, carrying it in his hand, went to the wing of the castle in which the children slept. ”

“ The lawyer, Mr. Josiah Hankey, was a small, dry, withered old man, whose long acquaintance with his profession had driven out of him whatever original beliefs in the sweetness and beauty of humanity he might once have possessed; a man who rarely committed himself to an opinion without looking at it carefully on all sides, and then, after all, giving it grudgingly. ”

“ Speak low—see, Mistress Barbara has fallen asleep.”
“Well, you must know,” began the boy, “that we had a letter from our old nurse—the one who was with us before my father went abroad. She wrote to tell me of his death, and to tell me that a wicked man had stolen my castle, and that I had no home at all. Of course she's old, and she's a woman, and she doesn't understand things; I shall soon show her, and everyone else, that people can't go about stealing castles and expect to have no notice taken of it. ”

“ Jack Dalwyn, drawn up in the shelter of the settle, the protecting wing of which completely hid him from the observation of anyone entering the inn, idly speculated in his own mind as to what travellers these might be, coming to such a benighted spot at such an hour, the while he cosily enjoyed the warmth of the fire. An exclamation from the landlord first roused him, and he sat still, listening. He heard a man's gruff tones ”

“ While I——that's it, have a good look at me, my starched old dame in the long waist and the ruff”—he flared the candle towards one of the canvases as he spoke: “look well on me! My father was a linen-draper—a very respectable old man—a stout citizen of London town, and nothing better ”