TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A Blow Faced
II. Alone in London
III. A Fellow-sufferer
IV. A Resolve
V. Treasure Trove
VI. The End of the Episode
CHAPTER I.
A BLOW FACED.
On a Sunday morning in the early part of November 1878 a stranger arrived at Euston Square, and passed from the gloom of the station into the brighter air of the London streets, there pausing for a second or two to look around him. He was a man of about fifty, short, thin, wiry, square-shouldered; his features firm even to sternness, and hardened by exposure to wind and weather; his hair gray; his beard also gray and clipped short. The harshness of his face, however, was in a measure tempered by the look of his eyes; these were calm and contemplative, perhaps even with a shade of melancholy in them. For the rest, he was well and warmly clad in home-spun cloth; and he carried with him a small hand-bag, which appeared to be his only luggage.
He hesitated only for a moment. As he turned off to the left he met two labourers coming along.
'This is the way to London Bridge, is it not?' he asked, slowly, and with a strong northern accent.
'Yes, sir,' said one of them; and then, as he looked after the departing stranger, he took the pipe from his mouth and grinned, and said to his companion,
'Scottie means to walk it.'