Roger Acton had not slept well; had not slept at all till nearly break of day, except in the feverish fashion of half dream half revery.  There were thick-coming fancies all night long about what Ben had said and done:  and more than once Roger had thought of the expediency of getting up, to seek without delay the realization of that one idea which now possessed him—­a crock of gold.  When he put together one thing and another, he considered it almost certain that Ben had flung away among the lot no mere honey-pot, but perhaps indeed a money-pot:  Burke hadn’t half the cunning of a child; more fool he, and maybe so much the better for me, thought money-bitten, selfish Roger.  Thus, in the night’s hot imaginations, he resolved to find the spoil; to will, was then to do:  to do, was then to conquer.  However, Nature’s sweet restorer came at last, and, when he woke, the idea had sobered down—­last night’s fancies were preposterous.  So, it was with a heavy heart he got up later than his wont—­no work before him, nothing to do till the afternoon, when he might see Sir John, except it be to dig a bit in his little marshy garden.  When Grace ran to the Hall, Roger was going forth to dig.

Now, I know quite well that the reader is as fully aware as I am, what is about to happen; but it is impossible to help the matter.  If the heading of this chapter tells the truth, a “discovery” of some sort is inevitable.  Let us preliminarize a thought or two, if thereby we can hang some shadowy veil of excuse over a too naked mystery.  First and foremost, truth is strange, stranger, et-cetera; and this et-cetera, pregnant as one of Lyttleton’s, intends to add the superlative strangest, to the comparative stranger of that seldom-quoted sentiment.  To every one of us, in the course of our lives, something quite as extraordinary has befallen more than once.  What shall we say of omens, warnings, forebodings?  What of the most curious runs of luck; the most whimsical freaks of fortune; the unaccountable things that happen round us daily, and no one marvels at them, till he reads of them in print?  Even as Macpherson, ingenious, if not ingenuous, gathered Ossian from the lips of Highland hussifs, and made the world with modern Attila to back it, wonder at the stores that are hived on old wives’ tongues; even so might any other literary, black-smith hammer from the ore of common gossip a regular Vulcan’s net of superstitious “facts.”  Never yet was uttered ghost story, that did not breed four others; every one at table is eager to record his, or his aunt’s, experience in that line; and the mass of queer coincidences, inexplicable incidents, indubitable seeings, hearings, doings, and sufferings; which you and I have heard of in this popular vein of talk, would amply excuse the wildest fictionist for the most extravagant adventure—­the more improbable, the nearer truth.  Talk of the devil, said our ancestors—­let “&c.” save us from the consequence.  Think of any thing