sap was mounting in the trunk, he asked
himself, were the dried-up particles of blood
mounting with it: to make out more obviously
this year than last, the leaf-screened
figure of the young man, swinging in the
wind?

"However, he turned his Money over
and over, and still over. He was in the
dark trade, the gold-dust trade, and most
secret trades that yielded great returns.
In ten years, he had turned his Money
over, so many times, that the traders and
shippers who had dealings with him,
absolutely did not lie—for once—when they
declared that he had increased his fortune,
Twelve Hundred Per Cent.

"He possessed his riches one hundred
years ago, when people could be lost easily.
He had heard who the youth was, from hearing
of the search that was made after him;
but, it died away, and the youth was
forgotten.

"The annual round of changes in the tree
had been repeated ten times since the night
of the burial at its foot, when there was a
great thunder-storm over this place. It
broke at midnight, and raged until morning.
The first intelligence he heard from his old
serving-man that morning, was, that the tree
had been struck by Lightning.

"It had been riven down the stem, in a
very surprising manner, and the stem lay in
two blighted shafts: one resting against the
house, and one against a portion of the old
red garden-wall in which its fall had made a
gap. The fissure went down the tree to a
little above the earth, and there stopped.
There was great curiosity to see the tree,
and, with most of his former fears revived,
he sat in his arbour—grown quite an old man
—watching the people who came to see it.

"They quickly began to come, in such
dangerous numbers, that he closed his garden-
gate and refused to admit any more. But,
there were certain men of science who
travelled from a distance to examine the tree,
and, in an evil hour, he let them in—Blight
and Murrain on them, let them in!

"They wanted to dig up the ruin by the
roots, and closely examine it, and the earth
about it. Never, while he lived! They
offered money for it. They! Men of science,
whom he could have bought by the gross,
with a scratch of his pen! He showed them
the garden-gate again, and locked and
barred it.

"But, they were bent on doing what they
wanted to do, and they bribed the old serving-
man—a thankless wretch who regularly
complained when he received his wages, of
being underpaid—and they stole into the
garden by night with their lanterns, picks,
and shovels, and fell to at the tree. He was
lying in a turret-room on the other side of
the house (the Bride's Chamber had been
unoccupied ever since), but he soon dreamed
of picks and shovels, and got up.

"He came to an upper window on that
side, whence he could see their lanterns, and
them, and the loose earth in a heap which he
had himself disturbed and put back, when it
was last turned to the air. It was found!
They had that minute lighted on it. They
were all bending over it. One of them said,
'The skull is fractured;' and another,' See
here the bones;' and another, 'See here the
clothes;' and then the first struck in again,
and said, 'A rusty bill-hook!'

"He became sensible, next day, that he
was already put under a strict watch, and
that he could go nowhere without being
followed. Before a week was out, he was
taken and laid in hold. The circumstances
were gradually pieced together against him,
with a desperate malignity, and an
appalling ingenuity. But, see the justice of
men, and how it was extended to him! He
was further accused of having poisoned that
girl in the Bride's Chamber. He, who had
carefully and expressly avoided imperilling
a hair of his head for her, and who had seen
her die of her own incapacity!

"There was doubt for which of the two
murders he should be first tried; but, the
real one was chosen, and he was found
Guilty, and cast for Death. Bloodthirsty
wretches! They would have made him
Guilty of anything, so set they were upon
having his life.

"His money could do nothing to save him,
and he was hanged. I am He, and I was
hanged at Lancaster Castle with my face to
the wall, a hundred years ago!"

At this terrific announcement, Mr.
Goodchild tried to rise and cry out. But, the two
fiery lines extending from the old man's eyes
to his own, kept him down, and he could not
utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however,
was acute, and he could hear the clock strike
Two. No sooner had he heard the clock
strike Two, than he saw before him Two old
men!

Two.

The eyes of each, connected with his
eyes by two films of fire: each, exactly like
the other: each, addressing him at precisely
one and the same instant: each, gnashing the
same teeth in the same head, with the same
twitched nostril above them, and the same
suffused expression around it. Two old
men. Differing in nothing, equally distinct
to the sight, the copy no fainter than the
original, the second as real as the first.

"At what time," said the Two old men,
"did you arrive at the door below?"

"At Six."

"And there were Six old men upon the
stairs!"

Mr. Goodchild having wiped the perspiration
from his brow, or tried to do it, the
Two old men proceeded in one voice, and in
the singular number: