Part 17 (2/2)

”Very likely, indeed. I wonder who has gold to throw away in that manner. However, I don't say but there may be such. 'Fools and their money are soon parted,' some folks say.”

”Who gave you the gold?” asked Oliver.

”You may ask that,” said Roger; ”but you may not believe me when I tell you. You know the Earl of Arundel comes sometimes into these parts.

Well,--it was he.”

”When? Why?”

”He often comes down to see the Trent, having the care of the forests upon it: and one time he stopped near here, on his way into Scotland, about some business. They say he has a castle full of wonderful things somewhere.”

”What sort of things?” asked Ailwin. ”Horn spoons and pewter drinking-mugs to his old red earthenware?”

”Perhaps,” replied Roger, ”But I heard nothing of them. What I heard of was old bricks, and stone figures, and all manner of stone jars. Well, a gentleman belonging to the Earl of Arundel chanced to come across us, just after we had found a pitcher or two down in the moss; and he made us go with him to the Earl...”

”You don't mean that you ever saw a lord to speak to!” exclaimed Ailwin, turning sharp round upon Roger.

”I tell you I did, and uncle too.”

Ailwin muttered that she did not believe a word of it; but her altered manner towards Roger at the moment, and ever after, showed that she did.

”He asked us all manner of questions about the Levels,” continued Roger:--”I mean about the things that lie in the moss. He did not seem to care about the settlers and the crops, otherwise than in the way of business. All that he did about the earthenware was plainly for his pleasure. He bought all we could find on that spot; and he said if we found any more curiosities at any time, we were ... But I can't stand talking any more.”

And Roger glanced with suspicious eyes from the piece of leather (as he called it) that he had met with in the bank to Oliver. He wanted to have the sole benefit of this new discovery.

”And what were you to do, if you found anything more?” asked Ailwin.

”One might easily bury some of the ware my uncle brings, and keep it in the moss till it is well wetted; and then some earl might give one gold for it. Come, Roger, tell me what you were to do with your findings.

You owe it to me to tell me; considering that your people have got away my cloak and warm stockings.”

”Look for them in the moss,--you had better,” said Roger. ”You will find them there or nowhere.”

Not a word more would he say of his own concerns.

Oliver did not want to hear more. On being told of the Earl of Arundel's statues and vases, he had, for a moment, longed to see them, and wondered whether there were any alabaster cups in the collection; but his thoughts were presently with George again. He remembered that Mildred had been left long enough alone with the body; and he dismissed Ailwin, saying that he himself should soon have done, it was now growing so dark.

As he worked on silently and thoughtfully, Roger supposed he was observing nothing; and therefore ventured, turning his back on Oliver, to investigate a little more closely the leathern curiosity he had met with. He disengaged the earth more and more, drew something out, and started at what he saw.

”You _have_ found a curiosity,” observed Oliver, quietly. ”That is a mummy.”

”No--'tis a man,” exclaimed Roger, in some agitation. ”At least it is something like a man. Is not this like an arm, with a hand at the end of it?--a little dried, shrunk, ugly arm. 'Tis not stiff, neither.

Look! It can't be Uncle Stephen, sure--or Nan!”

”No, no: it is a mummy--a human body which has been buried for hundreds and thousands of years.”

Roger had never heard of a mummy; and there was no great wonder in that, when even Oliver did not rightly know the meaning of the word. All animal bodies (and not only human bodies) which remain dry, by any means, instead of putrefying, are called mummies.

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