don't mind Timothy, nor nothin.'

Still he did not move.

'Then I s'pose yer want everybody in the village to know?' he said, with
sarcasm.

Bessie was taken aback.

'No--I--don't'--she said, undecidedly--'I don't know what yer mean.'

'You go back and tell John as I'll come when it's dark, an, if he's not
a stupid, he won't want me to come afore.'

Bessie understood and acquiesced. She ran back with her message to John.

At half-past eight, when it had grown almost dark, Isaac descended the
hill. John opened the door to his knock.

'Good-evenin, Isaac. Yer'll take it, will yer?'

'If you can't do nothin better with it,' said Isaac, unwillingly. 'But
in gineral I'm not partial on keeping other folks' money.'

John liked him all the better for his reluctance.

'It'll give yer no trouble,' he said. 'You lock it up, an it'll be all
safe. Now, will yer lend a hand?'

Isaac stepped to the door, looked up the lane, and saw that all was
quiet. Then he came back, and the two men raised the box.

As they crossed the threshold, however, the door of the next cottage--
which belonged to Watson the policeman--opened suddenly. John, in his
excitement, was so startled that he almost dropped his end of the box.

'Why, Bolderfield,' said Watson's cheery voice, 'what have you got
there? Do you want a hand?'

'No, I don't--thank yer kindly,' said John, in agitation. 'An, if _you_
please, Muster Watson, don't yer say nothin to nobody.'

The burly policeman looked from John to Isaac, then at the box. John's
hoard was notorious, and the officer of the law understood.

'Lor bless yer,' he said, with a laugh, 'I'm safe. Well, good evenin to
yer, if I can't be of any assistance.'

And he went off on his beat.

The two men carried the box up the hill. It was in itself a heavy,
old-fashioned affair, strengthened and bottomed with iron. Isaac
wondered whether the weight of it were due more to the box or to the
money. But he said nothing. He had no idea how much John might have
saved, and would not have asked him the direct question for the world.
John's own way of talking about his wealth was curiously contradictory.
His 'money' was rarely out of his thoughts or speech, but no one had
ever been privileged for many years now to see the inside of his box,
except Eliza once; and no one but himself knew the exact amount of the
hoard. It delighted him that the village gossips should double or treble
it. Their estimates only gave