came a low laugh, as if the unseen person was enjoying his perplexity.
"Look overhead, guv'nor," said the voice. "Look aloft!"
Copplestone glanced upward, and saw a man's head and face, framed in a screen of bushes which grew on a shelf of the limestone cliff. The head was crowned by a much worn fur cap; the face, very brown and seamed and wrinkled, was ornamented by a short, well-blackened clay pipe, from the bowl of which a wisp of blue smoke curled upward. And as he grew accustomed to the gloom he was aware of a pair of shrewd, twinkling eyes, and a set of very white teeth which gleamed like an animal's.
"Hullo!" said Copplestone. "Come out of that!"
The white teeth showed themselves still more; their owner laughed again.
"You come up, guv'nor," he said. "There's a natural staircase round the corner. Come up and make yourself at home. I've a nice little parlour here, and a matter of refreshment in it, too."
"Not till you show yourself," answered Copplestone. "I want to see what I'm dealing with. Come out, now!"
The unseen laughed again, moved away from his screen, and presently showed himself on the edge of the shelf of rock. And Copplestone found himself staring at a queer figure of a man—an under-sized, quaint-looking fellow, clad in dirty velveteens, a once red waistcoat, and leather breeches and gaiters, a sort of compound between a poacher, a game-keeper, and
