'You won't forget about the tombstone, will you, Joe?' she said, finding the prospect of a monument to her pet decidedly consoling. 'I mean to make up a nice epitaph for him, in poetry if I can manage it—something about his being such a beauty, and then dying doing his duty, because that would rhyme.'
'Miss Peggy,' declared Joe solemnly, 'you shall have that there little tombstone, if I has to go without one myself. You write the words out plain on a piece of paper, and I'll walk over to Bethogwen the very next time I gets a holiday. You'll see my cousin will do it beautiful, havin' worked a year in a stonemason's yard, and being fond of a dog, too. He might even try his hand at a weepin' angel or a broken flower at the top, but I can't promise that, not knowin' whether he's kept his tools.'
The box containing the old manuscript was carried into the loft by Joe, and examined by Father at his leisure.
'I don't know much about this sort of thing, Peggy,' he said, 'but I should imagine they would be mostly old records and deeds of the Abbey. It is marvellous how well they are preserved, but the oak and the stone combined must have kept out the air, and parchment does not decay like paper. Valuable? Not from a money point of view, I am afraid; but no doubt they would prove very interesting to some antiquarian who could read them. We will keep them here until the Rector comes home again. I expect he will be delighted to look over them some day, and will tell us what they are all about.'
Mr. Vaughan had intended to write an account of the find to the local newspaper, but in the hurry and worry of his affairs he forgot. The Rector was still away, and as nobody else took any interest in such matters, the mysterious old chest stayed neglected among the corn-sacks. Only Peggy sometimes stole up the stone staircase, and taking one of the strange books from its hiding-place, would pore over the quaint pictures which bordered the pages. They fascinated her with their crude drawing and colours still vivid and bright—saints with halos round their heads, kneeling rapt in prayer, with folded hands, in the midst of green fields and flowers, while the Virgin, clothed in blue and gold, appeared with a whole company of angels from the skies above; patient martyrs, with wan faces upturned to heaven, while their persecutors flung stones, or heaped on the burning brands; the blessed passing into the joys of Paradise, with the wicked writhing in the tormenting flames below; and round all a curious illuminated bordering, where strange faces peered out of twisting foliage, and figures of birds and animals were intertwined with patterns of flowers or the tail of a capital letter. What patient fingers, she wondered, had toiled over these in days gone by, working with paint-pots and palette of gold to put the glory of paradise on his pages? Had the world altered much in all these years? And how little did the old artist think that his work would be found and marvelled at when he and his order were alike forgotten, and the very Abbey where he had lived and laboured had long since crumbled away!
So the old chest remained in the loft, as hidden there as when it had been buried in the earth, and Peggy came and went, never dreaming in the time that followed that these ancient, musty relics could in any way be bound up with the fate and fortunes of the Vaughans.
CHAPTER XXII
DEEPENING TROUBLE
'The web of our life is a mingled yarn,
Good and ill together.'
As the year advanced, Mr. Vaughan found that his troubles by no means decreased. Mr. Norton, urged on by his solicitor, was a hard creditor, and would allow neither time nor mercy. He had taken a fancy to the place, it seemed, and hearing that some of the neighbouring properties would probably soon be on sale, wished to settle down at Gorswen and let it form the nucleus of a large new estate. Unless the whole of the mortgages could be paid up by the end of July, the property must fall into his hands, and the black cloud which had hung for so long over the Abbey seemed on the verge of breaking.