FullReads

“Four-barrow Hill, your reverence.”

“Oh, no, they don’t. On that point you really must allow me to correct you. If they meet at all, it will be at–what d’ye call it?– Cann’s Gate.”

And so they did. The Granville Hounds are, or were, a famous pack; but the great and golden day in their annals remains one on which they killed never a fox; a day’s hunting from which they trailed homewards behind a hearse driven in triumph by a very small clergyman without a head (for Mr. Noy had donned the very suit worn by Satan’s understudy, even to its high stock-collar pierced with eye-holes). That hearse contained my chest of treasure; and that procession is remembered in the parishes of Talland, Pelynt, Lanreath, and Braddock to this day.

I did not see it, alas! Bed claimed the invalid, and Mrs. Menhennick soothed him with her ministering attentions. But Parson Noy reported the day’s doings to me in a voice reasonably affected by deep potations at the “Punch Bowl Inn,” Lanreath.

“My son, it was glorious! First of all we ran the turnpike-man to earth, and frightened him into turning King’s evidence. He was at the bottom of the mischief, of course; and the hearse we found–where d’ye think? Close behind his house, sir, in a haystack–a haystack so neatly hollowed that it beat belief–with a movable screen of hay, which the rogues replaced when the coach was stowed! We found everything inside–masks, mourners’ hatbands, the whole bag of tricks; everything, barring your treasure, and that the preventive men dug out of the hold of an innocent-looking lugger on the point to sail for Guernsey. Four of the rascals, too, they routed up, that were stowed under decks and sleeping like angels.”

“And the coachman? And the guard?”

“Squire Granville has posted off half a dozen constables towards Falmouth; but I’ll lay odds that precious pair are on shipboard before this and heading out to sea. I’m sorry, too, for they were the wickedest villains of the piece; but they’ll be sorry before they have finished waiting at Guernsey. One can’t expect everything; and Providence has been mighty kind to us.”

“To me, at all events.”

“And to me, and to my parish.”

“Yes, to be sure,” said I; “the parish is well rid of such a bogey.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” said he dryly. “I’ve recovered my sermon.”