s very deep
set, and I could see that it had been intended to slide in grooves. At
the time I had no idea as to why it had been put there. But now I know
that it must have been constructed for purposes of irrigation.

There was, in fact, an old vegetable garden and orchard, still partly
enclosed with crumbling walls, not two hundred yards off through the
woods. And there is little doubt that it had been the intention of
some former travelled master of the Grange to cultivate his table
vegetables and fruits on the system of Southern Europe.

All, however, was now desolate.

Yet the iron plate in the bank, though mud-covered and rusty, had not
stuck altogether. Indeed, looking at it closely, it was not difficult
to see that it had recently been used. With the Hayfork Minister at
one end of the oak branch, and myself at the other, we soon made it
budge with a smothered heave-ho! and revealed a regularly bricked
tunnel leading apparently into the bowels of the earth.

"That is where you are to go, my son!" said Mr. Ablethorpe.

"Me!"

Mr. Ablethorpe nodded, and scraping away some leaves behind the fallen
tree on which we had been sitting together, he disinterred a coil of
stout cord, not thick, but very strong, with a red thread running
through it. "This has served," he said, "for heavier weights in more
dangerous places!"

And without more ado he proceeded to knot it about my waist, as if he
had been accustomed to nothing else all his life. But I objected.
Indeed, I had reason. For suppose Mad Jeremy, or Aphra Orrin, or Mr.
Stennis himself were to come while I was up there--what then?

"You leave that to me, Joe," said the Hayfork Minister; "there is not
one of them that would dare to touch me--no, nor you--while you are in
my company."

This was good enough to hear, and, in its way, comforting. But,
somehow, at such a time the mind craves for proofs more absolute. Or
to be somewhere else. Particularly the latter.

I think Mr. Ablethorpe saw something of my dismay on my face, for
immediately he stopped what he was doing, put his hand on my shoulder,
and said, "Joe, would I send you into any danger I would not be ready
to share myself?"

"No, I believe not, sir!" said I. For though he worried me like fun
about being the right sort of Churchman, he was a rare good sort
himself, man and Churchman, too. At least I know about the first, and
as for the Churchman, I am willing to take that on trust.