ut on this particular
evening Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to
her there without the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the
opportunity was worth taking advantage of.

Her son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more
proper moment to render him his share of the money than the present.
And the chance that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift,
of showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad
mother's heart.

She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of
which she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there
many a year. There were a hundred in all, and she divided them into
two heaps, fifty in each. Tying up these in small canvas bags, she
went down to the garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was
loitering about in hope of a supper which was not really owed him.
Mrs. Yeobright gave him the moneybags, charged him to go to Mistover,
and on no account to deliver them into any one's hands save her son's
and Thomasin's. On further thought she deemed it advisable to tell
Christian precisely what the two bags contained, that he might
be fully impressed with their importance. Christian pocketed the
money-bags, promised the greatest carefulness, and set out on his way.

"You need not hurry," said Mrs. Yeobright. "It will be better not to
get there till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back
here to supper, if it is not too late."

It was nearly nine o'clock when he began to ascend the vale towards
Mistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first
obscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At
this point of his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they
proceeded from a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow
ahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible.

He paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too
early even for Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he
took a precaution which ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever
he carried more than two or three shillings upon his person--a
precaution somewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when
filled with similar misgivings. He took off his boots, untied the
guineas, and emptied the contents of one little bag into the right
boot, and of the other into the left, spreading them as flatly as
possible over the bottom of each