'under the wide and starry sky

dig the grave, and let him lie.

glad did he live, and gladly die,

and he laid him down with a will.'

rollo, now grown into a fine dog of a year old, remained peggy's favourite among all her numerous pets. though she had not again tried him for a bedfellow, he was still the companion of her walks, and the most winsome playmate on wet days, and peggy firmly believed that he understood every word she said to him. he was growing clever with the sheep, too, and father hoped to be able to train him into a really valuable collie, even hinting that he might in time gain a prize at the annual sheep-dog contests which were held for the district of gorswen and the welsh border. peggy liked to see rollo working with the sheep, the tips of his ears twitching and his faithful brown eyes bright with intelligence, as he cleverly sorted the lambs which father had pointed out from the rest of the flock, and drove them neatly into the enclosure, coming up whimpering with pride for the praise which he knew awaited his efforts.

one lovely april morning peggy started off alone, on the ostensible errand of going to pay half a crown[246] which was owing to old williams, the mole-catcher, but the more real one of gathering primroses and hunting about for birds' nests. it was seldom that she was separated from bobby, who was as constant as her shadow, but to-day he had preferred to stay and work in his garden, having many designs for its improvement, while the holidays were waning only too fast. peggy had whistled for rollo, but he was not to be found, and it was only when she was more than half-way down the pasture that he came racing after her as hard as he could tear, nearly knocking her down in the exuberance of his joy.

instead of walking along the high-road, peggy determined to take the path through the fields which skirted the preserves belonging to lord hazelford's estate, for the finest primroses grew at the edge of the wood, and the earliest bluebells, and many a snug little nest might be found hidden away in those quiet hedgerows. it was a glorious morning, with the larks singing overhead and the thrushes trilling in the bushes, and that delicious smell of the earth which we often notice in early spring, and which makes the blood run through our veins like rising sap. the trees were clothed with the pale, tender green of april, and a cuckoo, the first of the year, flew out of the copse, and, cuckooing loudly, sped over to where the larch-trees were bursting out into a crowd of tassels. peggy had no pocket in her dress, but she turned the half-crown in her hand for good luck, and hoped it might answer the same purpose. rollo was almost as happy as his mistress. he poked his nose into all the rabbit-burrows, he chased the birds, and dug holes for rats, and generally behaved as if he were a puppy again, instead of a sedate, grown-up dog, snapping at the flies, and standing over peggy wagging his tail in[247] approval, while she gathered violets and wood-anemones.

the path which peggy was following ran along a lane with the wood on one side and a tall hedge on the other. it was a lonely spot, for there was not even a farmhouse in sight, and as it was only a by-road it was very seldom frequented, even by the country people. as she swung the gate open, and passed from the field into the lane, she saw a sight which for a moment made her hang back doubtfully, for a tramp lay stretched out full length asleep in the sunshine, his tattered clothes and broken boots a strange contrast to the bed of white daisies and celandine upon which he lay. peggy was not generally afraid of poor people, but even in sleep this man had an evil, hang-dog look about his face, which might have warned many an older person to give him a wide berth. she stood for a little while with the gate in her hand, hesitating whether to go forward or not, then, thinking she could probably pass him quietly without waking him, she walked on, treading on tip-toe. but he could not have been so fast asleep as she supposed, for he sprang up as she neared him, and casting a swift glance round to see whether she were accompanied or alone, held out his hand, and begged for money.

'i have none to give you,' said peggy, trying to pass him by; but he stood over the path before her with a blustering air.

'no money! what's that in your hand?' he said roughly.

peggy put her hand under her dress, and tried to beat a retreat to the gate.

'now then!' cried the man, with a horrible oath, 'none of your slinking off! you give me what you[248] have there, or i'll break every bone in your body, and worse! here! hand it over, quick!'

he came a step nearer, but at that moment there was a rush and a rustle, and rollo bounded like an arrow through the gate, and flew at his throat. the two rolled over together, and peggy clung trembling to the gatepost as she watched the confused heap at her feet, rollo scratching, snarling, and biting like a wild beast, and the tramp kicking, fighting, and swearing in a way which made her blood go cold to hear. she was too terrified to run away, and could only stand there, a breathless witness of the scuffle. now the dog had the mastery, and now the man, as each panted and fought for his life; but at length something bright gleamed in the sunlight, there was a cry of agony, and rollo lay in a pool of blood upon the grass. the tramp raised himself slowly up, and looked at peggy. peggy shrieked, such a shriek of ghastly terror that it might have been heard a mile away, and mercifully it was heard, for there was an answering call from the wood, followed by a rustle of branches and dead leaves, and the keeper and his son burst through the thick undergrowth, and came scrambling over the fence, almost before the echo of her cry had died away. the tramp took to his heels, and was off down the lane with sturdy harry adams racing after him, in less time than it takes to tell it.

'after him, hal!' yelled his father. 'don't let the villain escape! send a shot through his leg if he's gaining on you! has the brute hurt you, miss vaughan?'—looking peggy tenderly over to see that no damage was done.

peggy shook her head, for speech seemed almost impossible at that moment, and she broke away from[249] the keeper's eager inquiries to kneel down by rollo's side, trying vainly to staunch the crimson stream that was draining his life away. but rollo was beyond the reach of help now. the poor beast made a feeble effort to raise himself up to greet his loved little mistress; he whined, licked her hand, and with one last affectionate glance from his rapidly-glazing eyes, rolled over on his side—quite dead.

'he was a faithful friend, peggy, for he laid down his life for you,' said father later on in the day, when poor rollo's body had been carried home to the stable, and the tramp safely lodged by mr. adams and harry in warford gaol, to await his trial for attempted highway robbery and assault.

peggy had cried till her cheeks were purple and swollen and her eyes were only two aching slits. she took her troubles hardly, and just at present it seemed to her as if life could never be quite the same again. bobby, almost equally afflicted, had the added trial of trying to conceal his grief, for he regarded tears as unmanly, and the result was a peculiar shortness and roughness of manner, with frequent rushings away to the barn when his feelings overcame him. joe, whose sympathy could not have been more genuine if peggy had lost a parent, hovered about all day, trying to console the bereaved pair, with small success, till towards evening a sudden flash of genius inspired him to suggest a funeral, perhaps his village experience teaching him that the bustle and preparation necessary for such a ceremony was the best safety-valve to work off sorrow.

'we might bury him among the ruins, miss peggy. there's a fine place round by the old abbot's house,[250] where the ground is soft, and we could dig easy; and i've a cousin in the slate-quarries at bethogwen as has promised many a time to cut me a little tombstone as a present, if ever i was wantin' one, so i'll ask him to bring it next time he comes, and put rollo's name on it, and the day, and as how he died defendin' you; and we'll fix it up nice, and plant flowers round, just as if it was the churchyard.'

peggy sat up, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her damp pocket-handkerchief.

'he ought to be in the real churchyard,' she said chokily. 'if ever a dog deserved the victoria cross and a military funeral, it's rollo!'

'do you think he'll go to heaven?' asked bobby, with a suspicious gulp.

'of course he will! i wonder you can ask such a question! heaven wouldn't be heaven unless we found rollo there! we'll wrap his body in the union jack, and pick all our best flowers to strew round him; and you might fire off your old pistol over his grave, if father will let you have any gunpowder—a parting salute, you know, like they do for officers,' said peggy, cheering up a little at the thought of arranging the obsequies.

just at sunset the melancholy procession started off from the stable towards the ruins. joe and bobby were bearers, and carried between them the packing-case lid, draped with all the available flags that could be found, which bore what had once been poor rollo. peggy followed as chief mourner, her arms full of wreaths and flowers, and a piece of black crape, purloined from the scrap-bag, pinned conspicuously upon her hat. the place chosen was among the most perfect part of the old abbey, not so much filled up with stones and rubbish as the[251] great refectory or the remains of the choir. tradition pointed it out as the abbot's house, and that name had clung to it through all the hundreds of years since the busy monks had lived and worked there.

'suppose you dig just here, joe,' cried peggy, selecting a spot where a blackthorn was bursting forth into a sheet of white blossom and the primroses were yellowest and best.

joe moistened the palms of his hands in the orthodox fashion, and seizing the spade began to shovel away at the loose, light soil. he had dug about three feet deep when his spade struck against a smooth, flat stone, which, instead of coming out easily amongst the rubbish, seemed to extend for some way underneath the surface.

'it looks like a paving-stone, for all the world,' he said, sweeping the soil away from it with his hand. 'i'll dig out the earth all around it, and see what it do be.'

it took joe a considerable time to clear the stone, though bobby went to his aid with a trowel; but he got it free at last, and peggy stooped down curiously to examine it.

'there are marks on it, like letters and queer figures, but they're all filled up with soil,' she said. 'it seems to me it's a kind of lid, and if you dig round the edge a little more, joe, we might lift it up. it's rather like the cover of one of those old stone coffins in the churchyard, only smaller. i wonder if there is anything inside?'

joe set to work again with a will, clearing out the earth well from under the side of the stone; then, putting his fingers beneath it, he gave a mighty jerk of his strong arms, and up it came, nearly upsetting[252] him with the force of the recoil. three eager faces peered anxiously down into what certainly looked like the inside of a small stone coffin, but instead of containing mouldering bones, it held a good-sized chest of oak, bound with iron, rather rusted and crumbling, but still holding quite firmly together.

'lift it out, joe!' cried peggy, in such excitement that rollo was almost forgotten for the moment. 'whatever can be inside it?'

'it bean't no light weight, miss peggy, whatever it be' groaned joe, for it was as much as he could manage to heave the heavy chest from its resting-place on to the grass above.

'there may be money and all sorts of treasures in it,' suggested bobby. 'perhaps the smugglers left it behind.'

'nay, this be older nor smugglers,' said joe, with a glance at the solid workmanship and the quaint carving on the old lid, 'unless they made use of an old thing for their own purposes. let be, master bobby, i can't do nothing with you hangin' over me like this!'

he had been fumbling with the ancient rusty lock while he spoke, and it now broke away from the rotten woodwork. he flung back the heavy lid, and revealed—neither gold nor jewels, nothing but a pile of musty-looking old parchments and books. the children looked at each other in blank disappointment.

'there might be something underneath,' said peggy, beginning to rummage the chest to the very bottom; but her hopes were soon dashed, for a further search did not bring anything more to light.

'how disgusting! who cares for old books?' exclaimed bobby, whose heart had been set on stolen jewels, smuggled valuables, or daggers and firearms at the least.

[253]'they're very funny ones, at any rate,' said peggy, picking up one of the despised tomes. 'just look at the backs. they're so thick and heavy. they seem to be made of metal of some kind, with little bits of coloured glass stuck into them; but they're terribly tarnished and dirty. i can't read the writing inside at all, and there are the queerest little pictures all round the edges of the pages.'

'what be i to do with the box?' asked joe, gazing at their find in some perplexity. 'and be i to dig another hole for the burial, miss, or not?'

her thoughts recalled to the melancholy occasion, peggy flung down the book, and her grief broke forth anew.

'we'll bury him in the old stone coffin,' she declared. 'we'll line it with leaves and primroses, and then lay him in, and just drop on the lid again. i'm glad he should have a real coffin, after all, and the abbey's almost as good as the churchyard, for father says lots of the old monks must have been buried here, if we could only find their graves.'

even ophelia could not have chosen a more flowery resting-place, for the children covered poor rollo with violets, primroses, and white sloe-blossom. joe carefully replaced the lid, and shovelled on the soil again, heaping it up, and smoothing it with the flat of his spade, in imitation of the village sexton.

father had refused to allow gunpowder, so the pistol was useless, but peggy placed a wreath of white jonquils picked from her own garden upon the grave, and dropped so many tears over it that i do not think any dog could have been more truly mourned and regretted.

'you won't forget about the tombstone, will you, joe?' she said, finding the prospect of a monument[254] to her pet decidedly consoling. 'i mean to make up a nice epitaph for him, in poetry if i can manage it—something about his being such a beauty, and then dying doing his duty, because that would rhyme.'

'miss peggy,' declared joe solemnly, 'you shall have that there little tombstone, if i has to go without one myself. you write the words out plain on a piece of paper, and i'll walk over to bethogwen the very next time i gets a holiday. you'll see my cousin will do it beautiful, havin' worked a year in a stonemason's yard, and being fond of a dog, too. he might even try his hand at a weepin' angel or a broken flower at the top, but i can't promise that, not knowin' whether he's kept his tools.'

the box containing the old manuscript was carried into the loft by joe, and examined by father at his leisure.

'i don't know much about this sort of thing, peggy,' he said, 'but i should imagine they would be mostly old records and deeds of the abbey. it is marvellous how well they are preserved, but the oak and the stone combined must have kept out the air, and parchment does not decay like paper. valuable? not from a money point of view, i am afraid; but no doubt they would prove very interesting to some antiquarian who could read them. we will keep them here until the rector comes home again. i expect he will be delighted to look over them some day, and will tell us what they are all about.'

mr. vaughan had intended to write an account of the find to the local newspaper, but in the hurry and worry of his affairs he forgot. the rector was still away, and as nobody else took any interest in such matters, the mysterious old chest stayed neglected among the corn-sacks. only peggy sometimes stole[255] up the stone staircase, and taking one of the strange books from its hiding-place, would pore over the quaint pictures which bordered the pages. they fascinated her with their crude drawing and colours still vivid and bright—saints with halos round their heads, kneeling rapt in prayer, with folded hands, in the midst of green fields and flowers, while the virgin, clothed in blue and gold, appeared with a whole company of angels from the skies above; patient martyrs, with wan faces upturned to heaven, while their persecutors flung stones, or heaped on the burning brands; the blessed passing into the joys of paradise, with the wicked writhing in the tormenting flames below; and round all a curious illuminated bordering, where strange faces peered out of twisting foliage, and figures of birds and animals were intertwined with patterns of flowers or the tail of a capital letter. what patient fingers, she wondered, had toiled over these in days gone by, working with paint-pots and palette of gold to put the glory of paradise on his pages? had the world altered much in all these years? and how little did the old artist think that his work would be found and marvelled at when he and his order were alike forgotten, and the very abbey where he had lived and laboured had long since crumbled away!

so the old chest remained in the loft, as hidden there as when it had been buried in the earth, and peggy came and went, never dreaming in the time that followed that these ancient, musty relics could in any way be bound up with the fate and fortunes of the vaughans.