perhaps one-sided psychological study. In a revised edition
Lytton made the narrative agree with his own conclusion that,
though an accomplice in robbery, Aram was not guilty of
premeditated or actual murder. Edward Bulwer Lytton died on
January 18, 1873.


_I.--At the Sign of the Spotted Dog_


In the county of ---- was a sequestered hamlet, to which I shall give
the name of Grassdale. It lay in a fruitful valley between gentle and
fertile hills. Its single hostelry, the Spotted Dog, was owned by one
Peter Dealtry, a small farmer, who was also clerk of the parish. On
summer evenings Peter was frequently to be seen outside his inn
discussing psalmody and other matters with Jacob Bunting, late a
corporal in his majesty's army, a man who prided himself on his
knowledge of the world, and found Peter's too easy fund of merriment
occasionally irritating.

On one such evening their discussion was interrupted by an
unprepossessing and travel-stained stranger, who, when his wants, none
too amiably expressed, had been attended to, exhibited a marked
curiosity concerning the people of the locality. As the stranger paid
for his welcome with a liberal hand, Peter became more than usually
communicative.

He described the lord of the manor, a distinguished nobleman who lived
at the castle some six miles away. He talked of the squire and his
household. "But," he continued, "the most noticeable man is a great