melancholy could give way on occasion to fits of violent temper. For instance, he had been almost beside himself when Bessie, who had leanings to the Establishment, as providing a far more crowded and entertaining place of resort on Sundays than her husband's chapel, had rashly proposed to have the youngest baby christened in church. Other Independents did it freely—why not she? But Isaac had been nearly mad with wrath, and Bessie had fled upstairs from him, with her baby, and bolted the bedroom door in bodily terror. Otherwise, he was a most docile husband—in the neighbours' opinion, docile to absurdity. He complained of nothing, and took notice of little. Bessie's untidy ways left him indifferent; his main interest was in a kind of religious dreaming, and in an Independent paper to which he occasionally wrote a letter. He was a gardener at a small house on the hill, and had rather more education than most of his fellows in the village. For the rest, he was fond of his children, and, in his heart of hearts, exceedingly proud of his wife, her liveliness and her good looks. She had been a remarkably pretty girl when he married her, some eight years after his first wife's death, and there was a great difference of age between them. His two elder children by his first marriage had long since left home. The girl was in service. It troubled him to think of the boy, who had fallen into bad ways early. Bessie's children were all small, and she herself still young, though over thirty.

When Bessie came up to him, she looked round to see that no one could hear. Then she stooped and told him her errand in a panting whisper. He must go down and fetch the box at once. She had promised John Borrofull that they would stand by him. They were his own flesh and blood—and the cupboard had a capital lock—and there wasn't no fear of it at all.

Isaac listened to her at first with amazement, then sulkily. She had talked to him often certainly about John's money, but it had made little impression on his dreamer's sense. And now her demand struck him disagreeably.

He didn't want the worrit of other people's money, he said. Let them as owned it keep it; filthy lucre was a snare to all as had to do with it; and it would only bring a mischief to have it in the house.

After a few more of these objections, Bessie lost her temper. She broke into a torrent of angry arguments and reproaches, mainly turning, it seemed, upon a recent visit to the house of Isaac's eldest son. The drunken ne'er-do-weel had given Bessie much to put up with. Oh yes!—she was to be plagued out of her life by Isaac's belongings, and he wouldn't do a pin's worth for her. Just let him see next time, that was all.

Isaac smoked vigorously through it all. But she was hammering on a sore point.

"Oh, it's just like yer!" Bessie flung at him at last in desperation. "You're allus the same—a mean-spirited feller, stannin' in your children's way! 'Ow do you know who old John's going to leave his money to? 'Ow do you know as he wouldn't leave it to them poor innercents"—she waved her hand tragically towards the children playing in the road—"if we was just a bit nice and friendly with him now 'ee's gettin' old? But you don't care, not you!—one 'ud think yer were made o' money—an' that little un there not got the right use of his legs!"

She pointed, half crying, to the second boy, who had already shown signs of hip disease.

Isaac still smoked, but he was troubled in his mind. A vague presentiment held him, but the pressure brought to bear upon him was strong.

"I tell yer the lock isn't a good 'un!" he said, suddenly removing his pipe.

Bessie stopped instantly in the middle of another tirade. She was leaning against the door, arms akimbo, eyes alternately wet and flaming.

"Then, if it isn't," she said, with a triumphant change of tone, "I'll soon get Flack to see to it—it's nobbut a step. I'll run up after supper."

Flack was the village carpenter.

"An' there's mother's old box as takes up the cupboard," continued
Isaac gruffly.

Bessie burst out laughing.

"Oh! yer old silly," she said. "As if they couldn't stand one top o' the t'other. Now, do just go, Isaac—there's a lovey! 'Ee's waitin' for yer. Whatever did make yer so contrairy? Of course I didn't mean nothin' I said—an' I don't mind Timothy, nor nothin'."

Still he did not move.

"Then I s'pose yer want everybody in the village to know?" he said with sarcasm.

Bessie was taken aback.

"No—I—don't—" she said undecidedly—"I don't know what yer mean."

"You go back and tell John as I'll come when it's dark, an', if he's not a stupid, he won't want me to come afore."

Bessie understood and acquiesced. She ran back with her message to
John.

At half-past eight, when it had grown almost dark, Isaac descended the hill. John opened the door to his knock.

"Good evenin', Isaac. Yer'll take it, will yer?"

"If you can't do nothin' better with it," said Isaac, unwillingly.
"But in gineral I'm not partial on keeping other folk's money."

John liked him all the better for his reluctance.

"It'll give yer no trouble," he said. "You lock it up, an' it'll be all safe. Now, will yer lend a hand?"

Isaac stepped to the door, looked up the lane, and saw that all was quiet. Then he came back, and the two men raised the box.

As they crossed the threshold, however, the door of the next cottage—which belonged to Watson, the policeman—opened suddenly. John, in his excitement, was so startled that he almost dropped his end of the box.

"Why, Bolderfield," said Watson's cheery voice, "what have you got there? Do you want a hand?"

"No, I don't—thank yer kindly," said John in agitation. "An', if you please, Muster Watson, don't yer say nothin' to nobody."

The burly policeman looked from John to Isaac, then at the box. John's hoard was notorious, and the officer of the law understood.

"Lor' bless yer," he said, with a laugh, "I'm safe. Well, good evenin' to yer, if I can't be of any assistance."

And he went off on his beat.

The two men carried the box up the hill. It was in itself a heavy, old-fashioned affair, strengthened and bottomed with iron. Isaac wondered whether the weight of it were due more to the box or to the money. But he said nothing. He had no idea how much John might have saved, and would not have asked him the direct question for the world. John's own way of talking about his wealth was curiously contradictory. His "money" was rarely out of his thoughts or speech, but no one had ever been privileged for many years now to see the inside of his box, except Eliza once; and no one but himself knew the exact amount of the hoard. It delighted him that the village gossips should double or treble it. Their estimates only gave him the more ground for vague boasting, and he would not have said a word to put them right.

When they reached the Costrells' cottage, John's first care was to examine the cupboard. He saw that the large wooden chest filled with odds and ends of rubbish which already stood there was placed on the top of his own box. Then he tried the lock, and pronounced it adequate; he didn't want to have Flack meddling round. Now, at the moment of parting with his treasure, he was seized with a sudden fever of secrecy. Bessie meanwhile hovered about the two men, full of excitement and loquacity.