‘Well, you be a good girl and true; and I’ve been thinking that of all people of the next generation that I can trust, you are the best. ’Tis my bonds and my title-deeds, such as they be, and the leases, you know, and a few guineas in packets, and more than these, my will, that I have to speak about. Now do ye come this way.’
‘O, such things as those!’ she returned, with surprise. ‘I don’t understand those things at all.’
‘There’s nothing to understand. ’Tis just this. The French will be here within two months; that’s certain. I have it on the best authority, that the army at Boulogne is ready, the boats equipped, the plans laid, and the First Consul only waits for a tide. Heaven knows what will become o’ the men o’ these parts! But most likely the women will he spared. Now I’ll show ’ee.’
He led her across the hall to a stone staircase of semi-circular plan, which conducted to the cellars.
‘Down here?’ she said.
‘Yes; I must trouble ye to come down here. I have thought and thought who is the woman that can best keep a secret for six months, and I say, “Anne Garland.” You won’t be married before then?’
‘O no!’ murmured the young woman.
‘I wouldn’t expect ye to keep a close tongue after such a thing as that. But it will not be necessary.’
When they reached the bottom of the steps he struck a light from a tinder-box, and unlocked the middle one of three doors which appeared in the whitewashed wall opposite. The rays of the candle fell upon the vault and sides of a long low cellar, littered with decayed woodwork from other parts of the hall, among the rest stair-balusters, carved finials, tracery panels, and wainscoting. But what most attracted her eye was a small flagstone turned up in the middle of the floor, a heap of earth beside it, and a measuring-tape. Derriman went to the corner of the cellar, and pulled out a clamped box from under the straw. ‘You be rather heavy, my dear, eh?’ he said, affectionately addressing the box as he lifted it. ‘But you are going to be put in a safe place, you know, or that rascal will get hold of ye, and carry ye off and ruin me.’ He then with some difficulty lowered the box into the hole, raked in the earth upon it, and lowered the flagstone, which he was a long time in fixing to his satisfaction. Miss Garland, who was romantically interested, helped him to brush away the fragments of loose earth; and when he had scattered over the floor a little of the straw that lay about, they again ascended to upper air.
‘Is this all, sir?’ said Anne.