'Oh, nurse!' said Miss Bess, 'Mr. Prideaux says that he shouldn't wonder if there were treasures hidden away in the smugglers' caves, though it wouldn't be safe for us to look for them. He says they'd be so very far in, where it's quite, quite dark.'
'And one or two of the caves really go a tremendous way underground. Didn't you say there's one they've never got to the end of?' asked Master Francis.
'So they say,' replied the old man, with his queer Cornish accent. It did sound strange to me then, their talk—though I've got so used to it now that I scarce notice it at all. 'But I wouldn't advise you to begin searching for treasures, Master Francis. If there's any there, you'd have to dig to get at them. I remember when I was a boy a deal of talk about the caves, and some of us wasted our time seeking and digging. But the only one that could have told for sure where to look was gone. He met his death some distance from here, one terrible stormy winter, and took his secret with him. I have heard tell as he "walks" in one of the caves, when the weather's quite beyond the common stormy. But it's not much use, for at such times folk are fain to stay at home, so there's not much chance of any one ever meeting him.'
'Then how has he ever been seen?' asked Miss Bess in her quick way; 'and who was he, Mr. Prideaux? do tell us.'
But the old man didn't seem inclined to say much more. Perhaps indeed Miss Bess was too sharp for him, and he did not know how to answer her first question.
'Such things is best not said much about,' he replied mysteriously; 'and talking of treasures, by all accounts you'd have a better chance of finding some nearer home.'
He smiled, as if he could have said more had he chosen to do so. The children opened their eyes in bewilderment.
'What do you mean?' exclaimed the two elder ones. Miss Lally's mind was running too much on her stockings for her to pay much attention. Prideaux did not seem at all embarrassed.
'Well, sir, it's no secret hereabouts,' he said, addressing Master Francis in particular, 'that the old, old Squire, Sir David, the last of that name—there were several David Penroses before him, but never one since—it's no secret, as I was saying, that a deal of money or property of some kind disappeared in his last years, and it stands to reason that, being as great a miser as was ever heard tell of, he couldn't have spent it. Why, more than half of the lands changed hands in his time, and what did he do with what he got for them?'