“Hush!” said Felix, and thought to himself, “How terrible it is to be hated even when dead! We will go over the house,” he added aloud, “and see if anything has been taken.”
In the bedchamber they found ample evidence of looting. Felix, even in his indignation, could not resist his antiquarian tastes. He took up an ancient deed, and while he glanced over it, the shepherd pretended to tie his shoe-lace, and pocketed a spade-guinea which the crones had dropped on the floor.
“Who is there that could take charge of the place?” asked Felix presently.
“Thur be the bailie.”
“Go and bring him.”
The shepherd went; and Felix, to pass the time, took a book from an old black chest of drawers, with brass rings and lions’ heads for handles. It was a small quarto, a.d. 1650, a kind of calendar of astrology, medicine, and agriculture, telling the farmer when the conjunction of the planets was favourable for purchasing stock or sowing seed. When, presently, the bailiff came—a respectable man enough for his station—Felix, in his presence, locked the upper rooms and took the keys with him. Then, leaving the house in the bailiff’s charge, he rode through the starlit night, by the lonely highway, homeward.