"They are low blackguards," said Mother Billet: "they have not even respected my linen press."
"What, tumbled over the linen?" said Billet, springing towards the cavity which the corporal had carefully closed but into which, opening it, he plunged both arms deeply. "It is not possible!"
"What are you looking for, father?" asked the girl as her father looked about him bewildered.
"Look, look if you can see it anywhere: the casket! that is what the villains were raking for."
"Dr. Gilbert's casket?" inquired Mrs. Billet, who commonly let others do the talking and work in critical times.
"Yes, that most precious casket," responded the farmer thrusting his hands into his mop of hair.
"You frighten me, father," said Catherine.
"Wretch that I am," cried the man, in rage, "and fool never to suspect that. I never thought about the casket. Oh, what will the doctor say? What will he think? That I am a betrayer, a coward, a worthless fellow!"
"Oh, heavens, what was in it, dad?"
"I don't know; but I answered for it to the doctor on my life and I ought to have been killed defending it."