MOORE.


It was upon the third day after the occurrences narrated in the last
chapter had taken place that a lonely traveller might have been seen
urging his way across the fields just outside the town of Nottingham.
The gates closed at dusk: it was now past sunset, and he hastened
forward to gain admittance.

It was the man known at Haddon by the name of Nathan Grene, the
locksmith, whose actions had ever been at variance with his character,
and whose nature had always seemed to have been unequally yoked with
the common occupation of a smith.

Nathan, in fact, was no true smith. He was a brother-in-law of
Sir Ronald Bury, and having taken up the practice of astrology and
alchemy, this fact had been seized upon by his foes, and he had
been obliged to fly in disguise to save himself from one of those
persecutions which were so readily and frequently levelled against the
followers of the "black arts."

In the character of a locksmith he had lived for some months in an
uneasy state of security at Haddon. The lack of comfort which he was
compelled to experience in his new position being compensated for in
some small degree by the kind attentions he had received at the hands
of the widow Durden, which began directly upon his arrival, and which
soon rapidly ripened into a sincere regard for each other, and from
that eventually progressed into love.

Being well born, Nathan Grene--or rather Edmund Wynne, for such was