Coachman Goes Som

Hamilton Mayberry was just as much my friend as he was our hired coachman. He had been my father's friend. He had served in the same ship as

tion. Beside, among Bolderhead people, the master was considered no better than t

im all that had occurred on the Wavecrest as she drifted into the harbor that evening, a

deways into his shrewdly puckered face, "is what those Downes mea

grunt

committed suicide, and that if h

said Ha

, "have frightened mother? For that is what bro

hman for a third tim

stify me. I want to know what they meant. I intend to find

said gravely, "I don't bl

zzled, eithe

puzzled myself. But I reckon Paul Downes was j

s dory, to save himself from trouble and mother an

. And nobody believes it-nobody that's got

ou mean," I said, "that there was any such

runted Ham, philosophically. "Folk says that there can't be smoke without some fire. The oak-ball disproves it. And it'

I cried. "Do you mean that there

l, s

!" I cried

"It was your grandfather's will. I don't wish to say aught against the dead, sir," said Ham, "but if ever there wa

nodding. "He did n

. That's a fact, Master Clint. Ye see, he put the money jest beyond your mother's reach, and beyond your reach. He done it very skillfully. He had the

and pain, "couldn't my father

ped; but he wasn't a money-maker. He knowed more than any ten doctors in this county-old Doc Eldridge is a fool to him. But your father was easy, and he

"You-you believe there is some t

to put this and that together and make out a case of suicide. His death, my poor boy, did make you and yo

before-when my father's death was still an awful reality to her. What occurred in our drawing room that evening had brought that time of trial and sorrow back to her mind, and had resulted in the attack I have recounted. I understood it all then-or I th