A hearty sneeze suddenly startled him as he spoke; he turned hastily about, but could see no one, and yet his hearing was not to be deceived! He searched the spot eagerly; he examined the little boat-shed, the copse, the underwood,—everything, in fact,—but not a trace of living being was to be seen; at last a slight rustling sound seemed to issue from a piece of rustic shell-work, representing a river god reclining on his urn, and, on approaching, he distinctly detected the glitter of a pair of eyes within the sockets of the figure.
“Here goes for a brace of balls into him,” cried Norwood, adjusting a cap on his pistol. “A piece of stonework that sneezes is far too like a man to be trusted.”
Scarcely was the threat uttered, when a tremulous scream issued from within, and a voice, broken with terror, called out,——
“D-don't fire, my Lord. You'll m-m-murder me. I'm Purvis—Sc-Sc-Scroope Purvis.”
“How did you come to be there, then?” asked Norwood, half angrily.
“I 'll tell you when I g-get out!” was the answer; and he disappeared from the loophole at which he carried on the conversation for some seconds. Norwood began to fancy that the whole was some mystification of his brain, for no trace of him was to be had; when he emerged from the boat-house with his hat stripped of the brim, and his clothes in tatters, his scratched face and hands attesting that his transit had not been of the easiest. “It's like a r-r-rat-hole,” cried he, puffing for breath.
“And what the devil brought you there?” asked Norwood, rudely.
“I ca-came out to see the fight!” cried he; “and when you're inside there you have a view of the whole park, and are quite safe, too.”
“Then it was you who drove out in the calessino meant for the doctor?” said Norwood, with the air of a man who would not brook an equivocation.
“Yes; that was a d-d-dodge of mine to get out here,” said he, chuckling.