whom plans
occur like oaths to a bad, foul-mouthed, swearing man such as Lang
Hutchins, one who had defied his Maker the very day his soul, was
required of him.

"'Buried in the garden at Deep Moat Grange!' I repeated to myself.
'The place out of habitation, a prey to every poacher, the gardens and
orchards overrun by vagrant boys!' Ah--even in that word it had come
to me!

"Deep Moat Grange was for sale! But then I had not enough money to buy
it, and I could not face the raising of a mortgage--the possible
scrutinies! At that moment Jeremy Orrin tossed carelessly at me a
long, many-caped overcoat, such as long-distance coachmen used to wear
in the days when twice a day the 'Dash' and the 'Flying Express' passed
Breckonside, and I was a boy in knee breeches and a blue bonnet. I
could feel that the coat was well padded though not heavy. And there
in the weaving-room of the little cottage, I drew out of the lining
hundreds and hundreds of packets of five-pound notes, all English, and
mostly long in use, like those which pass from hand to hand among
drovers. I could see that no one of them had recently been in a bank.
There would, therefore, be no awkward record of the numbers. Moreover,
Lang Hutchins had come north suddenly (so Jeremy told me) after quite a
year of running the southern markets.

"It was as safe as could be--all but the garden plot at Deep Moat
Grange, where in one particular oblong the earth had been raked with
the split and blackened nails of Jeremy's fingers.

"After that, there was no letting that spot out of our sight till I had
got the lawyer work finished--I mean that of the vendor's
representatives of Deep Moat Grange. I was my own lawyer and factor,
that is, so far as the district was concerned. I had a kinsman in
Edinburgh who went over all the agreements and so on, for me, just to
see that everything was in order.

"All the time I was away Jeremy watched, resolved that if any one
manifested overmuch interest in the scratched soil at the bottom of the
lawn where the rhododendrons begin, he or she should find a quiet
resting-place beside them. But, barring one slight accident, into the
details of which I deem it useless to enter (being but a poor man and
not worth in the gross three solvent halfpence) no one looked near the
lawn or the old orchard.

"At last Deep Moat Grange was mine. Deep Moat Grange was paid for in
untraceable money--I had examined every note. Jeremy and I mo