and that young Kit was off. We never saw
no more of him. Folks said he'd gone for
a sodger and got shot in the Crimea, but I
don't know nothing about that. After he'd
gone things went on worse and worse with
the Garths, and old Kit, whose beauty
wasn't improved by the scar left by his
son's parting present, seemed to go right
off his head like, when he'd got his drink
aboard, and ill-used his wife worse than
ever. Well, sir, to make a long story short,
one night, it was the twenty-first of June
three year ago, old Kit went home from the
public at a little afore eleven o'clock, not
quite drunk, although he'd been drinking
hard. It was a tremendous bad night,
thundering and lightening fearful, and a
deal of rain a falling, but old Kit didn't
mind that, and set off for his cottage, which
was about a mile from the river. Nobody
seed him on the road home; there wasn't
many people about such a night as that, as
you may suppose, sir, and nobody seed him
go into his house. A little after eleven the
neighbours was aroused by frightful screams
and cries of murder from old Kit's cottage;
and although they was used to strange
noises from there now and then, some of
'em thought it sounded more serious this
time, and turned out to see what was up.
They found the garden-gate and cottage-
door both open, and between 'em, as if she'd
run out with her last strength, they found
the poor old woman. Her head and face
had been all battered in with some heavy
instrument, and I was told by them as
picked her up that it was a most dreadful
sight to see. She was stone dead, o' course.
There wasn't much doubt about who'd done
it. The poor old creetur had got hold of a
handful of grey whiskers and a piece of old
Kit's neckercher, and old Kit himself, and
his gun, was not to be found. The alarm
was raised, and the constables came, and
they hunted about for old Kit all that night,
but managed of course to go every way but
the right, until it was too late. At last they
goes down to the lock, and they says to the
keeper, who hadn't heard nothing o' what
had been going on, ' Ha' ye seen anything
o' old Garth?' ' Yes,' says the lock-keeper.
He'd come down there about two hours ago,
had jumped into his punt which was a lying
just outside the lock-gates, and gone off up
the river. The keeper told 'em he didn't
half like the old man's looks. He just see
him by the light of a flash of lightening, and
he said his face looked like death, and as
if there was somethin' horrible after him.
He'd got his gun with him, the keeper said,
and his shirt was all tore about his throat
as if he'd ha' been having a fight. The
constables they went off to Henley, hot-
foot, but they didn't find no Kit, and for a
good reason too. The next morning his
punt, with nothing in it but the gun, was
found among the piles of the weir, and when
they got the gun they got the thing as the
murder was done with, for the poor old
woman's grey hair was a sticking to the
butt. As for Kit, he turned up about three
days after, washed up against the lock-
gates, and it was pretty clear how he came
there, for he had a shot-hole in his breast
big enough to put your hand in. That was
just such another night as last night was—I
mind it well."

That was the story old Tom told me; I
remember every word he said as distinctly
as possible. I knew when he began, by
the feeling of horror that possessed me,
that I was going to hear the explanation of
my last night's mystery. I felt then that
what I had seen was not of this world. I
don't think it had so presented itself to me
before, except by the unreasoning terror
with which the thought of it filled my
mind.

I suffered greatly for some time afterwards.
I have never yet completely got
over the remembrance of that awful face; at
first it was terrible, I had not been to
Henley since then until to- day, and if I had
known when we first started that you
would have stopped at the Island, I should
have made some excuse to come on by
road. As it was, it was not until we
had actually started that I remembered it
was the twenty-first of June. The old fear
came over me as we neared the place,
and, against my will, I felt compelled to
watch for the figure I saw that night. Now
I have seen the place again without it, I
hope the impression will fade from my
mind. Hush! there is Jack Long; not a
word of this to him.

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