do find that there was short above a hundred pieces, which did make me mad; and considering that the neighbour’s house was so near that we could not suppose we could speak one to another in the garden at the place where the gold lay—­especially my father being deaf—­but they must know what we had been doing on, I feared that they might in the night come and gather some pieces and prevent us the next morning; so W. Hewer and I out again about midnight, for it was now grown so late, and there by candlelight did make shift to gather forty-five pieces more.  And so in, and to cleanse them:  and by this time it was past two in the morning; and so to bed, with my mind pretty quiet to think that I have recovered so many.  And then to bed, and I lay in the trundle-bed, the girl being gone to bed to my wife, and there lay in some disquiet all night, telling of the clock till it was daylight.

11th.  And then rose and called W. Hewer, and he and I, with pails and a sieve, did lock ourselves into the garden, and there gather all the earth about the place into pails, and then sift those pails in one of the summer-houses, just as they do for dyamonds in other parts of the world; and there, to our great content, did with much trouble by nine o’clock (and by the time we emptied several pails and could not find one), we did make the last night’s forty-five up seventy-nine:  so that we are come to about twenty or thirty of what I think the true number should be; and perhaps within less; and of them I may reasonably think that Mr. Gibson might lose some:  so that I am pretty well satisfied that my loss is not great, and do bless God that it is so well,

[About the year 1842, in removing the foundation of an old wall, adjoining a mansion at Brampton, always considered the quondam residence of the Pepys family, an iron pot, full of silver coins, was discovered, and taken to the Earl of Sandwich, the owner of the house, in whose possession they still remain.  The pot was so much corroded, that a small piece of it only could be preserved.  The coins were chiefly half-crowns of Elizabeth and the two elder Stuarts, and all of a date anterior to the Restoration.  Although Pepys states that the treasure which he caused to be buried was gold exclusively, it is very probable that, in the confusion, a pot full of silver money was packed up with the rest; but, at all events, the coincidence appeared too singular to pass over without notice.—­B.]

and do leave my father to make a second examination of the dirt, which he promises he will do, and, poor man, is mightily troubled for this accident, but I declared myself very well satisfied, and so indeed I am; and my mind at rest in it, being but an accident, which is unusual; and so gives me some kind of content to remember how painful it is sometimes to keep money, as well as to get it, and how doubtful I was how to keep it all night, and how to secure it to London:  and so got all my gold put up in bags.  And so