to learn him that when Jeremy asks for
his ain, he is no to be denied as if he were a beggar wantin' alms!"

Then he took a new tack, and launched into "The Toom Pooch"--which is
to say, the "empty pocket"--a very popular ditty in the Scots language,
and especially about Breckonside:

"An empty purse is slichtit sair,
Gang ye to market, kirk, or fair,
Ye'll no be muckle thocht o' there,
Gin ye gang wi' a toom pooch!"

He finished with a shout of derision.

"Ye puir feckless lot!" he shouted down to the crowd beneath. "I ken
you and Breckonside. Here's charity for ye! Catch a haud!" And he
showered the contents of a pocket-book down upon their heads.

"Here are notes o' ten pound, and notes o' twenty, and notes o' a
hundred! What man o' ye ever saw the like? Only Jeremy, Jeremy and
his maister. They wan them a', playin' at a wee bit game wi' rich
lonely folk. Jeremy was fine company to them. And whiles it ended in
a bit jab wi' the knife in the ribs, and whiles in a tug o' the hemp
aboot a lad's neck, if he wasna unco clever. But it was never Jeremy's
neck, nor was the knife ever in Hobby's back till Jeremy--but that's
tellin'! Oh, Hobby's a'richt. I saw him sitting screedin' awa' at his
windin' sheet, and thinkin' the time no lang."

He rose and danced, singing as he danced--

"There's nae luck aboot the hoose,
There's nae luck ava----"

The flames shot up like the cracking of a mighty whip. The madman felt
the sting, and with a wild yell he launched himself over the parapet
into the muddy sludge at the bottom of Deep Moat pond. He must have
gone in head foremost, for he never rose. Only the melodeon, with the
water trickling in drops off its bell chime in silver gilt, and the
glittering tinsel of its keys, rose slowly to the surface among a few
air bubbles and floated there among a little brownish mud.

CHAPTER XXXIII

CONFESSION

The ruins of Deep Moat Grange were black and cold--almost level with
the ground, also. For the folk had pulled the house almost stone from
stone, partly in anger, partly in their search for hidden treasure.
Elsie was home again in the white cottage at the Bridge End, and my
father was attending to his business quietly, as if nothing had
happened.

The authorities, of course, had made a great search among the
subterranean passages of the monks' storehouses, without, however,
discovering more than Elsie and my father could have told t