‘Write you a bit of a note, and I will manage to send it.’

‘Pick up the money, mother, and I will write the note.’  Mrs Jenkins proceeded to obey her son, whilst he unlocked a desk, and wrote the following hasty lines:—­

’I must be in London next Monday.  I must see you before I leave.  Meet me at the old place in the wood by the little Fall, Sunday evening, during church time.’

He folded the note without signing it, and gave it to his mother, without adding any address.

’Seal it mother, and deliver it, or rather send it by some one you can trust.’

’I’ll manage that.  Now pick you up some of the money.  Here’s a hundred pound in my apron now, and gracious me! the lots more!’

’If you will keep the hundred pounds in your apron, mother, and let me have the rest, I shall be satisfied.’

‘But what’ll you be doing with all this goold?’

’Preparing to make you the mother of Councillor Jenkins, or of a famous man of some sort or other.  What do you say to a poet or a prime minister?’

’I ’ould rather you do be a councillor, than anything—­like Councillor Rice, Llandore.’

’Well, I shall perhaps, be a judge with all this money, and I daresay my father—­’

Here a vision of the bed in the next room stopped the young man’s speech, and shuddering slightly, he kicked a heap of sovereigns that lay near his foot, and sent them rolling into different corners of the room.

’Take away the ill-gotten gain, mother, it will never prosper; you had better go to bed, and I will do the same.  I suppose it would be impossible to sleep with that yellow usury on the floor.  I should have Plutus at the head of the imps of darkness about my bed, instead of “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,” that I used to pray to “bless the bed that I lie on."’

‘Don’t talk so fullish, Howel.’

‘Why it was you taught me all that Popery.’

’The Lord forgive you, Howel, I never did see the Pope, and ’ould sooner teach you the Methodist hymn book.’

‘Well, never mind, let us go to bed.’

’I’ll go down and sit by the fire.  Lie you down here.  God bless you, my boy, give your poor mother a kiss.’

‘Good-night, mother, or rather good morning,’ said the son, bending down carelessly to be embraced by the parent who would sacrifice her life for him.

When Mrs Jenkins had left the room, Howel hastily collected the gold that was scattered about, and tossed it, without counting it, into the box already mentioned, which he locked, and put the key in his pocket.  He then lay down on the bed without undressing, and tried to sleep.  In vain, no sleep would come to ‘steep his senses in forgetfulness.’  The bed in the next room, with its grim, gaunt inmate, was constantly before his eyes.  If he dozed for a moment, the miser, his father, and the gold he had for years longed to obtain possession of, haunted him, and made him start like a thief, as if taken in the act of stealing the coin now by inheritance his own.