, returning to
the hall, which he had left in the morning some time later than his
nephew, to seek an asylum in a hollow tree about two miles off. The tree
was so situated as to command a view of the building, and Uncle Benjy had
managed to clamber up inside this natural fortification high enough to
watch his residence through a hole in the bark, till, gathering from the
words of occasional passers-by that the alarm was at least premature, he
had ventured into daylight again.

He was now engaged in abstractedly tracing a diagram in the dust with his
walking-stick, and muttered words to himself aloud. Presently he arose
and went on his way without turning round. Festus was curious enough to
descend and look at the marks. They represented an oblong, with two semi-
diagonals, and a little square in the middle. Upon the diagonals were
the figures 20 and 17, and on each side of the parallelogram stood a
letter signifying the point of the compass.

'What crazy thing is running in his head now?' said Festus to himself,
with supercilious pity, recollecting that the farmer had been singing
those very numbers earlier in the morning. Being able to make nothing of
it, he lengthened his strides, and treading on tiptoe overtook his
relative, saluting him by scratching his back like a hen. The startled
old farmer danced round like a top, and gasping, said, as he perceived
his nephew, 'What, Festy! not thrown from your horse and killed, then,
after all!'

'No, nunc. What made ye think that?'

'Champion passed me about an hour ago, when I was in hiding--poor timid
soul of me, for I had nothing to lose by the French coming--and he looked
awful with the stirrups dangling and the saddle empty. 'Tis a gloomy
sight, Festy, to see a horse cantering without a rider, and I thought you
had been--feared you had been thrown off and killed as dead as a nit.'

'Bless your dear old heart for being so anxious! And what pretty picture
were you drawing just now with your walking-stick!'

'O, that! That is only a way I have of amusing myself. It showed how
the French might have advanced to the attack, you know. Such trifles
fill the head of a weak old man like me.'

'Or the place where something is hid away--money, for instance?'

'Festy,' said the farmer reproachfully, 'you always know I use the old
glove in the bedroom cupboard for any guinea or two I possess.'

'Of course I do,' said Festus ironically.

They had now reached a l