he came and took away the spade. What I
began at once to anticipate happened that
night. Shaw got up when the Lodge was all
quiet, and stole out again, I following him as
before. For ever so long he went up and down
the orchard, seeking a good place to hide his
treasure. Where three of the biggest crab-trees
stand in a triangle, their roots writhed in and
out of the earth, he dug a hole, neither
wide nor deep; for I looked at it well while he
was gone to the rift to bring his treasure.
When he returned with it he sat down and
nursed it, hugged it, wept over it, seemed hardly
able to put it out of his sight. I got back safe,
and about half an hour after he came back too.

Now I had shepherd's secret I did not
like it; it became the terror of my life. He
gave up his Sunday afternoon visits to the
ruins, and sat either in the orchard itself or in
the kitchen which looked up it. I had
opportunities enough now of going to the ruins, but
I never ventured. He had taken on to be
suspicious. From being a silent man, he
became a mute; but the stealthy watchfulness
of his eyes was everywhere, especially on
me. I hardly dared sleep of nights lest he
should do me a mischief, and when they grew
long with the coming on of winter, I began to
cast about in my mind how I would run away
from the farm and go to sea. But I kept my
plan very close for fear Shaw should forestal
me with his hand or his knife at my throat.

Running away was, however, none so easy;
and at last I told Helstone, one morning when
we were afield together, that I wanted to leave
the Lodge, and I told him why. I never knew
till then that master was a bad man.

"Shsh!" hissed he, as he gathered my meaning,
and glanced over his shoulder either way, as if the
birds o' the air might carry the matter to Shaw.

As I looked at him I wished heartily that I
had kept my own counsel, for now I saw that I
had two enemies to dread instead of one, and that
Helstone was the more dangerous. For the
rest of that day he never let me out of his sight.
He was plotting what he would do. Early the
next morning he sent Shaw off to Southampton
with some sheep for the butcher, and me he
ordered into the garden to work under the
mistress's eye. He disappeared for a few hours, but
about noon he came and told me to go down the
rift and gather an armful of holly to deck the
Lodge for Christmas, which was close at hand.
This was, indeed, unless my memory fails me,
Christmas-eve.

The finest hollies and the richest in red
berries grow near the bottom, and I had cut a
big bundle and pocketed my knife again, when
I was suddenly pounced on by two kidnappers
of the press-gang, which was always on the
prowl in the great war time. "In the king's
name," said they; but I knew it was Helstone's
doing, though I held my tongue, except to tell
them I'd as lief serve his majesty as my master.
The men laughed, and one of them answered
that there was then no love lost between us, for
my master had given them a golden guinea
apiece to rid him of me.

My adventures at sea have no place in this
history, so I must ask you, sir, to skip over the
the three years' cruise that made a sailor of me,
and land with me on the Hard at Portsmouth. I
had a shore-going leave of three weeks while
the War-Horse took in her stores for another
cruise, and as the weather was fine and hay-
harvest in progress, I walked over to
Southampton to look up old friends. The first I
dropt on was waggoner coming into the town
with a load of grass, and he told me a deal
that was news. The master, he said, was
flourishing like a green bay-tree. He had
had added the High Farm to the Lodge Farm,
and was growing mighty rich and prosperous,
and bringing up his sons like young squires. I
told him again how I had been caught and
carried off by the press-gang (not mentioning
Helstone's share in it, of course), and how
I was glad of it since I had tasted salt water,
and he said they had heard of it at the Lodge.
Two queer things had happened on the same
day; I had disappeared, and shepherd had run
stark mad. By bit and bit, from one and
another, I got the whole story, but I got it
from Helstone himself chiefly. I was not afraid
of the face of any man now, and I went openly
to see my old master, and ask him how he did;
taking heed, you may be sure, not to betray
that I knew the good turn he had done me three
years and a half before.

I thought he was a little uneasy at first
sight of me, but that went off, and he began to
inquire if I recollected a cock-and-bull story I
had told him of a treasure that Shaw, the
shepherd, had found in the ruins, and buried in the
orchard. "Oh yes," I said, "I recollect it; and
was there no treasure there?" "No," he replied,
"nothing at all. Shepherd's pranks of hiding and
seeking had ended in dangerous insanity; and
though his ravings were all of gold, no gold
had ever been discovered in any of his haunts."
I believed only as much of this as I pleased; but
I kept my countenance, and asked what had
become of Shaw after. Master raised his voice,
and staring me full in the eyes, as if he defied
my thoughts, said he had died in the madhouse
at Southampton. "The best thing God could
send him, if he was mad, was death," I said.

"When I came home from my second cruise,
which was not for nearly seven years, Helstone
was still in his place, and richer, and higher,
and mightier than ever. All things had gone
well with him, and all men spoke well of him.
I remember one woman in the village who had
barely enough to keep body and soul together,
pointing out to me how the Lord had blest him;
how he had laid farm to farm, and house to
house; how he had been forced to pull down
his barns and build bigger, to store his fine
harvests; but when I came to inquire if he was
a merciful man and a charitable man to the
poor, she said, "Oh no, there was not a harder
man in the forest; but see how the Lord
prospered him." I answered nothing, but I
thought in my heart that the Lord was only
letting him alone. It was easy for hard and
greedy men to get rich in those bad times.