paint fresh and green, and its brass-plate as bright as rubbing could
make it. Mr. Elster could not read the inscription on the plate from
where he was, but he knew it by heart: "Jabez Gum, Parish Clerk." And
there was a smaller plate indicating other offices held by Jabez Gum.

"I wonder if Jabez is as shadowy as ever?" thought Mr. Elster, as he
walked on.

One more feature, and that is the last you shall hear of until Hartledon
is reached. Close to the clerk's garden, on a piece of waste land, stood
a small wooden building, no better than a shed.

It had once been a stable, but so long as Percival Elster could remember,
it was nothing but a receptacle for schoolboys playing at hide-and-seek.
Many a time had he hidden there. Something different in this shed now
caught his eye; the former doorway had been boarded up, and a long iron
tube, like a thin chimney, ascended from its roof.

"Who on earth has been adding that to it?" exclaimed Mr. Elster.

A little way onward, and he came to the lodge-gates of Hartledon. The
house was on the same side as the Rectory, its park stretching eastward,
its grounds, far more beautiful and extensive than those of the Rectory,
descending to the river. As he went in at the smaller side-gate, he
turned his gaze on the familiar road he had quitted, and most distinctly
saw a wreath of smoke ascending from the pipe above the shed. Could it
be a chimney, after all?

The woman of the lodge, hearing footsteps, came to her door with hasty
words.