rouse me on these clear nights. At the time
I am speaking of, there were only two of the
farm-servants housed at the Lodge besides
myself, the shepherd and waggoner—young men,
and I but a lad to do odd jobs about the place,
and help everybody.

Yes, sir, I was a sailor since. I have
been round the world, and have seen fifty years
of adventures. But for an event to which I
shall presently come, here I might have dug
and delved all my life at the earth, never raising
eyes above it. I thank God that he has
given me a wider view of His world.

Shaw, the shepherd, was a solitary sort of
man. I hardly remember the sound of his voice.
He always whistled to his dog, and liked the
dumb beast's company better than any
Christian's. Waggoner was a rough, good-natured
fellow, not readier with kicks and curses than
most of his kind. He hardly belongs to my
tale. Moonlight or storm were all the same
to him. He slept and snored to drown the
roaring of the wind in the big chimney on the
loudest night. But shepherd was a restless
mortal, he knew the stars, and had a deal of
queer out-of-the-way knowledge that was not
good for him. Not a bird could cry but it was
an omen, not a leaf could fall but it was a sign.
He knew all the ways of the forest, and all the
wild stories people told of what had been
done in it since the days when the Norman
kings who conquered England made hunting-
grounds of their corn-fields and habitations
south and north, and were tracked and taken
by strange deaths, they or their sons, as they
pursued the game over cold hearth-stones.
When Shaw did talk, it was of such things as
these; and he would always dwell on the dark
end of his legends with a fierce enjoying
pleasure. He could neither read nor write, but he
had a wonderful memory and noticing power;
and, if he had got the chance, I suppose he
might have been made a scholar. But he did
not get the chance.

A favourite notion of his was that
somewhere in the abbey there was hidden treasure.
What monastic ruin has not its tradition of rich
coffined relics and secret hoards of gold? Ours
has, of course. Shaw spent his Sunday
afternoons there instead of in church, and it was a
joke against him that he spent them questing
for gold—a joke he sullenly resented as no
joke, being convinced in his mind that a
treasure there was , and that sooner or later he
should find it. And the strangest thing of all
is, sir, that he did find it. I know he found it,
though I never handled it, nor even saw the
glitter of the coin. He found it,and it was his
destruction.

That night of which I have spoken was the
time, and I was the witness, he had lain down
in his place, and had fallen asleep while I was
still waking. He tossed, he groaned, he sat up.
I think I can see him now, his white face that
never tanned, his black hair and eyes, in
the ghostly brightness of the moonlit room,
He scared me wider awake than ever; but
presently he dropped into another uneasy sleep,
from which he started a second time. The
same thing was repeated; but at the third time
he got, up and dressed himself with stealthy
haste, saying over and over, with a low chuckling
glee that sounded awful in the hush, "I see
where it is! I see where it is! I see where it, is!"

I lay very still, very still, holding my breath
till he went out, when I put on my clothes and
crept after him. He had left the door ajar, and
I saw him just disappearing under the trees,
with a pick over his shoulder. I said to myself
that he would kill me if he discovered me
following him. But, I followed, slipping from
tree to tree and from shadow to shadow. More
than once I thought I saw another man besides
himself; but when I looked earnestly to make
the figure out, there was none. Shaw never
glanced behind him—indeed, he was, no doubt,
so possessed by his object that he did not
think of pursuit and detection. He came
to the abbey, and went straight to a certain spot
in the ruins (which I will show you, sir, if
you please), where the moonlight was very
strong. Without delay he tore the long grass
away at the foot of the wall (there is no ivy
on that part), and slowly, with his pick, levered
out a stone. Then he knelt down. I did not
dare to go near enough to see what it was
he took from behind it and clutched to his breast
with a loud peal of laughter; but something he
did take out, and take away, forgetting the
pick that had dropped in the grass. Fast he
set off towards the cliffs. Where could he
be going, I wondered. He went down and
down the rift, and, when he had got nearly
to the bottom, he stopped all on a sudden. I
supposed that he had just remembered the
pick. He did not, however, return for it, but
began to scrape away the dead leaves and
soil with his hands under a clump of hollies,
and there he concealed his treasure, carefully
covering it up and drawing the boughs to the
earth to hide that it had been disturbed. It
was likely to be safe enough; few people went
or came that way.

Then, sure that he would not remove it again
that night, I crept, and crawled, and ran to get
back to my bed, and had barely time to cast off
my clothes and hide myself breathless in my
gloomy corner when he returned. The rest of
the night I slept, and I hope so did he, though
he was up before me, and when I looked into
the tool-shed there was the pick in its usual place,
so that he must have fetched it from the ruins
the very first thing.

All that morning there was about Shaw
an air of suppressed exultation, which Helstone,
when he saw him, remarked with a sneer.

"You'll be finding that pot o' gold soon,
Shaw," said he. "You have a look of good luck
about you to-day."

"That's more than I can say for you,
master," was shepherd's reply.

I had no chance of getting to the abbey,
much as I wanted to view the place where
Shaw had prised the stone out of the wall. I
was clearing the flower-borders in the garden
until dusk, and as I was putting by my tools