“These would be found on the body,” said Mr. Oakshott.  “I could swear to the purse.  You remember, madam, your uncle bantering him about French ladies and their finery, asking whose token it was, and how black my father looked?  Poor Perry, if my father could have had a little patience with him, he would not have gone roaming about and getting into brawls, and we need not be looking for him in yonder black pit.”

“You’ll never find him there, Master Robert,” spoke out the old Oakwood servant, behind Mrs. Oakshott’s chair, free and easy after the manner of the time.

“And wherefore not, Jonadab?” demanded his mistress, by no means surprised at the liberty.

“Why, ma’am, ’twas the seven years, you sees, and in course when them you wot of had power to carry him off, they could not take his sword, nor his hat, not they couldn’t.”

“How about his purse, then?” put in Dr. Woodford.

“I’ll be bound you will find it yet, sir,” responded Jonadab, by no means disconcerted, “leastways unless some two-legged fairies have got it.”

At this some of the party found it impossible not to laugh, and this so upset poor Martha’s composure that she was obliged to leave the table, and Anne was not sorry for the excuse of attending her, although there were stings of pain in all her rambling lamentations and conjectures.

Very tardily, according to the feelings of the anxious women, was the dinner finished, and their companions ready to take them out again.  Indeed, Madam Oakshott at last repaired to the dining-parlour, and roused her husband from his glass of Spanish wine to renew the search.  She would not listen to Mrs. Fellowes’s advice not to go out again, and Anne could not abstain either from watching for what could not be other than grievous and mournful to behold.

The soldiers were called out again by their captain, and reinforced by the Rectory servant and Jonadab.

There was an interval of anxious prowling round the opening.  Mr. Oakshott and the captain had gone down again, and found, what the military man was anxious about, that if there were passages to the outer air, they had been well blocked up and not re-opened.

Meantime the digging proceeded.

It was just at twilight that a voice below uttered an exclamation.  Then came a pause.  The old sergeant’s voice ordered care and a pause, somewhere below the opening with, “Sir, the spades have hit upon a skull.”

There was a shuddering pause.  All the gentlemen except Dr. Woodford, who feared the chill, descended again.  Mrs. Oakshott and Anne held each other’s hands and trembled.

By and by Mr. Fellowes came up first.  “We have found,” he said, looking pale and grave, “a skeleton.  Yes, a perfect skeleton, but no more—­no remains except a fine dust.”

And Robert Oakshott following, awe-struck and sorrowful, added, “Yes, there he is, poor Perry—­all that is left of him—­only his bones.  No, madam, we must leave him there for the present; we cannot bring it up without preparation.”