These tales of Maskew's doings failed not to reach Elzevir, and for some days he thought best not to move, though there was a cargo on the other side that wanted landing badly.

Tis the cold has chilled thy heart and made thee timid of that skulking rascal of the Manor; fill me a glass of Ararat milk, and one for thyself, and let us to bed.' I had learned by this not to be afraid of the good liquor, and while we sat sipping it, Elzevir went on 'There is a fortnight yet to run, and then you and I shall be cut adrift from our moorings.

Yet mine was a selfish sorrow; for I had little thought for Elzevir and the pain that it must be to him to quit, the Why Not?: nor yet was it the grief of leaving Moonfleet that so troubled me, although that was the only place I ever had known, and seemed to me thenas nowthe only spot on earth fit to be lived in; but the real care and canker was that I was going away from Grace Maskew.

I made as if I would follow the others, not wishing to see what I must see if I stayed behind, and knowing that I was powerless to bend Elzevir from his purpose.

Then Elzevir spoke to him, not roughly, but resolved; and yet with melancholy, like a judge sentencing a prisoner: 'Talk not to me of gibbets, for thou wilt neither hang nor see men hanged again.

Then Elzevir answered: 'And had I not an only son, and was he not brought back to me a bloody corpse?

It was a sight to stagger any man, and would have made me swoon perhaps, but that there was no time, for we were at the end of the under-cliff, and Elzevir set me down for a minute, before he buckled to his task.

'Faugh,' said Elzevir, 'tis a poor beast has lost his foothold.'

Yet Elzevir made no bones of it, nor spoke a single word; only he went very slow, and I felt him scuffle with his foot as he set it forward, to make sure he was putting it down firm.

And then the path grew steeper and steeper, and Elzevir went slower and slower, till at last he spoke: 'John, I am going to stop; but open not thy eyes till I have set thee down and bid thee.

No time was wasted in words; Elzevir had the flask in his pocket, and the boy was biting the crown.

But from where I sat I could peep out through the brambles in the open gap, and see without being seenand there was my young gentleman walking carelessly enough, and whistling like any bird so long as Elzevir's head was above the wall; but when Elzevir sat down, the boy gave a careful look round, and seeing no one watching any more, dropped his whistling and made off as fast as heels would carry him.

But from where I sat I could peep out through the brambles in the open gap, and see without being seenand there was my young gentleman walking carelessly enough, and whistling like any bird so long as Elzevir's head was above the wall; but when Elzevir sat down, the boy gave a careful look round, and seeing no one watching any more, dropped his whistling and made off as fast as heels would carry him.

So 'twas very music to me to hear a pat and splash of water dropping from the roof into a little pool upon the floor, and Elzevir made a cup out of my hat and gave a full drink of it that was icy-cool and more delicious than any smuggled wine of France.

And what I wanted most to know, namely how Grace fared and how she took the bad news of her father's death, I could not hear, for Elzevir said nothing, and I was shy to ask him.

The wind had blown fresh all the morning from south-west, and after Elzevir had left, strengthened to a gale.

Whenever Elzevir went out foraging, he carried with him that silver-butted pistol which had once been Maskew's, but left behind the old rook-piece.

We had agreed, moreover, on a pass-word, which was Prosper the Bonaventure, so that I might challenge betimes any that I heard coming, and if they gave not back this countersign might know it was not Elzevir.

Thou wast a child when I turned that morning as we went up Hoar Head with the pack-horses, and looked back on thee and Elzevir below, and Maskew lying on the ground.

'When he says the "well north",' continued Elzevir, ''tis clear he means to take a compass and mark north by needle, and at eighty feet in the well-side below that point will lie the treasure.

Even Elzevir, though he did not show it, was moved, I thought, at heart; and we chafed in our cave prison, and those eight days went wearily enough.

Elzevir took me by the hand and led me through the darkness of the workings, telling me where I should stoop, and when the way was uneven.

We sat in the summer-house, and I told her all that had happened at her father's death, only concealing that Elzevir had meant to do the deed himself; because it was no use to tell her that, and besides, for all I knew, he never did mean to shoot, but only to frighten.

For those thou mayest not look upon Are gathering fast round the yawning stoneScott It wanted yet half an hour of midnight when I found myself at the shaft of the marble quarry, and before I had well set foot on the steps to descend, heard Elzevir's voice challenging out of the darkness below.

MONBODDO, Lord (James Burnet), account of him, ii. 74, n. 1; v. 77; air bath, his, iii. 168; ancestors, superiority of our, v. 77; Boswell, letter from, v. 74; Condamine's Savage Girl, v. 110; copyright, v. 72; Dictionary-makers, i 296, n. 3; Egyptians, ancient, iv. 125; Elzevir Johnson, an, ii. 189, n. 2; v. 74, n. 3; enthusiastical farmer, v. 78, 111; Erse writings, ii.