ling gold coin, but it's a rum world, and that's a fact. Well,
I niver, and the summer-house gone, and jist look at thim there oaks.
Well, if that beant a master one."

"You never saw a masterer, that's what you were going to say, wasn't
it? Well, and take one thing with another, nor did I, George, if
that's any comfort to you. Now look here, just cover over this hole
with some boards and earth, and then come in and get some breakfast.
It's past eight o'clock and the gale is blowing itself out. A merry
Christmas to you, George!" and he held out his hand, covered with
cuts, grime and blood.

George shook it. "Same to you, Colonel, I'm sure. And a merry
Christmas it is. God bless you, sir, for what you've done to-night.
You've saved the old place from that banker chap, that's what you've
done; and you'll hev Miss Ida, and I'm durned glad on it, that I am.
Lord! won't this make the Squire open his eyes," and the honest fellow
brushed away a tear and fairly capered with joy, his red nightcap
waving on the wind.

It was a strange and beautiful sight to see the solemn George capering
thus in the midst of that storm-swept desolation.

Harold was too moved to answer, so he shouldered his last load of
treasure and limped off with it to the house. Mrs. Jobson and her
talkative niece were up now, but they did not happen to see him, and
he reached his room unnoticed. He poured the last bagful of gold into
the chest, smoothed it down, shut the lid and locked it. Then as he
was, covered with filth and grime, bruised and bleeding, his hair
flying wildly about his face, he sat down upon it, and from his heart
thanked heaven for the wonderful thing that had happened to him.

So exhausted was he that he nearly fell asleep as he sat, but
remembering himself rose, and taking the parchment from his pocket cut
the faded silk with which it was tied and opened it.

On it was a short inscription in the same crabbed writing which he had
seen in the old Bible that Ida had found.

It ran as follows:

"Seeing that the times be so troublous that no man can be sure of
his own, I, Sir James de la Molle, have brought together all my
substance in money from wheresoever it lay at interest, and have
hid the same in this sepulchre, to which I found the entry by a
chance, till such time as peace come back to this unhappy England.
This have I done on the early morn of Christmas Day, in the year
of our Lord 1642, having ended the hidi