winging his body to and fro, and improvise such music as never
has been heard on earth before.

But ever and anon, between bursts of strange melody--for there was a
certain attraction in every sound he produced--he would return to the
subject of the new cargo of melodeons which had just been received at
Yarrow's, down in the village. He would have one he declared, whatever
old Hobby might say, the skinflint--who would not let poor Jeremy have
a single goldpiece of all he had won for him by his own strong hands.

He would let him see, however, when he came back, who was master. And
if he would not, then he, Jeremy Orrin, knew somebody--perhaps not so
far away--who would give him not only one, but many melodeons, for one
smell of the fresh air.

Elsie had the presence of mind not to appear to understand that he
meant my father. It was, evidently, one of Jeremy's worst days. And
Elsie wished that she had been able to get her knife back from my
father, who had borrowed it the night before for a special piece of
filing. The work was approaching completion, but just at the last
moment he had come upon a bar of iron, buried, for what purpose he
could not imagine, in the thickness of the wall. It ran diagonally,
and would need to be cut in two places before there was any chance of
the passage being finished between their prison chambers.

But the bar once cut, and the passage clear, my father, who, as part of
his business, was learned in locks, did not anticipate from Elsie's
description any serious trouble. The iron door and patent safety lock
of his own prison house, recently arranged for by Mr. Stennis--he
remembered the transaction--was, of course, beyond him. But if all was
as he had been given to expect, the fastenings of Elsie's door--which
communicated with the oven corridor--were of quite another type, and
need not detain him long.

It was a little after eleven of the day, as Elsie judged by the light,
when Jeremy came back after a somewhat prolonged absence. He brought
her a piece of made bread--by which he meant bread bought from one of
the vans that passed along the highway, but none of which came up to
the Moat Grange.

"Hae," he said, smiling curiously, "there's for you! I hae nae time to
be baking to-day. The maister's hame. Guid luck, an' lang life to
him!"

He was speaking very curiously, laughing all the time--not offering
threats and complaints as he had been doing before.

"And see!" he