“I tell you I did, and uncle too.”
Ailwin muttered that she did not believe a word of it; but her altered manner towards Roger at the moment, and ever after, showed that she did.
“He asked us all manner of questions about the Levels,” continued Roger:—“I mean about the things that lie in the moss. He did not seem to care about the settlers and the crops, otherwise than in the way of business. All that he did about the earthenware was plainly for his pleasure. He bought all we could find on that spot; and he said if we found any more curiosities at any time, we were ... But I can’t stand talking any more.”
And Roger glanced with suspicious eyes from the piece of leather (as he called it) that he had met with in the bank to Oliver. He wanted to have the sole benefit of this new discovery.
“And what were you to do, if you found anything more?” asked Ailwin. “One might easily bury some of the ware my uncle brings, and keep it in the moss till it is well wetted; and then some earl might give one gold for it. Come, Roger, tell me what you were to do with your findings. You owe it to me to tell me; considering that your people have got away my cloak and warm stockings.”
“Look for them in the moss,—you had better,” said Roger. “You will find them there or nowhere.”
Not a word more would he say of his own concerns.
Oliver did not want to hear more. On being told of the Earl of Arundel’s statues and vases, he had, for a moment, longed to see them, and wondered whether there were any alabaster cups in the collection; but his thoughts were presently with George again. He remembered that Mildred had been left long enough alone with the body; and he dismissed Ailwin, saying that he himself should soon have done, it was now growing so dark.
As he worked on silently and thoughtfully, Roger supposed he was observing nothing; and therefore ventured, turning his back on Oliver, to investigate a little more closely the leathern curiosity he had met with. He disengaged the earth more and more, drew something out, and started at what he saw.
“You have found a curiosity,” observed Oliver, quietly. “That is a mummy.”