The tone, simple, quiet, self-contained, threw the Squire in amazement. He stood staring.
“Are you a fool?” he asked. “What do you suppose I have to do with your rubbishing ferns?”
“Nay, I supposed you owned them; that is, owned the land. You led me to believe so, in saying I had robbed you.”
“What I’ve lost is a pocket-book, with ten five-pound bank-notes in it; I lost it in the train; it must have been taken as we came through the tunnel; and you sat next but one to me,” reiterated the Squire.
The man put on his hat and glasses. “I am a geologist and botanist, sir. I came here after this plant to-day—having seen it yesterday, but then I had not my tools with me. I don’t know anything about the pocket-book and bank-notes.”
So that was another mistake, for the botanist turned out of his pockets a heap of letters directed to him, and a big book he had been reading in the train, a treatise on botany, to prove who he was. And, as if to leave no loophole for doubt, one stepped up who knew him, and assured the Squire there was not a more learned man in his line, no, nor one more respected, in the three kingdoms. The Squire shook him by the hand in apologizing, and told him we had some valuable ferns near Dyke Manor, if he would come and see them.
Like Patience on a monument, when we got back, sat the lady, waiting to see the prisoner brought in. Her face would have made a picture too, when she heard the upshot, and saw the hot Squire and the gold spectacles walking side by side in friendly talk.
“I think still he must have got it,” she said, sharply.
“No, madam,” answered the Squire. “Whoever may have taken it, it was not he.”