Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat Philip Feltram was liked very well--a gentle, kindly, and very timid creature, and, before he became so heart-broken, a fellow who liked a joke or a pleasant story, and could laugh heartily.

Where will Sir Bale find so unresisting and respectful a butt and retainer?
and whom will he bully now?
Something like remorse was worrying Sir Bale's heart a little; and the more he thought on the strange visit of Hugh Creswell that night, with its unexplained menace, the more uneasy he became.
The storm continued; and even to him there seemed something exaggerated and inhuman in the severity of his expulsion on such a night.

It was his own doing, it was true; but would people believe that?
and would he have thought of leaving Mardykes at all if it had not been for his kinsman's severity?
Nay, was it not certain that if Sir Bale had done as Hugh Creswell had urged him, and sent for Feltram forthwith, and told him how all had been cleared up, and been a little friendly with him, he would have found him still in the house ?--for he had not yet gone for ten minutes after Creswell's departure, and thus, all that was to follow might have been averted.

But it was too late now, and Sir Bale would let the affair take its own course.
Below him, outside the window at which he stood ruminating, he heard voices mingling with the storm.

He could with tolerable certainty perceive, looking into the obscurity, that there were three men passing close under it, carrying some very heavy burden among them.
He did not know what these three black figures in the obscurity were about.