"What did it all really mean?" was the question I put to Miles when he told me this story; for on that eventful afternoon I had only a very vague notion of what had happened.
"What did it all mean?" was the reply; "why, simply this, that my uncle was a forger. Probably he had never been guilty of such a crime before, but the fact remains that he forged that will from beginning to end, and did it so well that even Mr. Denny could detect no flaw, either in the text or in the signatures. He must have possessed more skill as a penman than any one imagined. At first we thought some expert criminal must have helped him, but the fact of Tom Lance discovering that sheet of paper covered with signatures in his desk seems to prove that he did it himself. For the sake of the family my mother did not wish him to be arrested, so gave him the opportunity to escape—a chance of which he had the good sense to avail himself, for he went off that night, and we never saw or heard anything of him again. It turned out that he was deep in debt. The house and land at Stonebank were heavily mortgaged, and as soon as it was known that he was gone, everything was seized by the creditors. He was a thoroughly bad man, and if it hadn't been for your adventure, Sylvester, he'd have turned my mother and myself out of doors before he'd done with us. Yes," insisted my old friend, seeing me about to interrupt, "we shall always consider we owe it to you and George Woodley that we are still living on in the old house. If you hadn't caused me to find the secret place, Mr. Denny would never have seen that codicil to my father's will which made him feel certain that the other was a forgery. It was that discovery, coupled with what I had already told him, that induced him to go and hunt up Tom Lance; and the two things together were enough to prove my uncle's guilt. Well, 'it's an ill wind that blows nobody good,' runs the old saying, and certainly we have cause to be thankful for the outcome of your eventful journey with the coach-load of convicts."
*****
Though the "secret place" has long ago been bricked up, the old house at Coverthorne remains much the same as it appeared when I first saw it; but a fresh generation of boys and girls have sprung up to enliven it with their laughter and frolics, and to this merry audience, around the self-same hearth from under which I was drawn up half dead that winter morning, I have told repeatedly the story of that strange adventure.
George Woodley lived to a hale and peaceful old age. He did well at his farming, and was content to hear from a distance the familiar toot of the horn on which he himself had performed for so many years. He was the same bright, good-hearted fellow to the end of his days, but he could never quite forgive the convicts for having thrown the old True Blue over the cliff.
"The cold-blooded villains!" he would exclaim. "If they'd left her in a field or shoved her into that dry pit, I wouldn't have minded; but to smash her on the rocks—'twas as bad as murder! Well, there! they met their punishment; and for my part I know I came out of it with a very handsome reward from Master Miles, and what's more, a good yarn to tell the boys."
THE END.