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She was for selling Dunnabridge and getting away from Dartymoor, because the place had used her bad, and she hated the sight of it; but Jonathan, a proud chap even then, got the lawyers to look into the matter, and they told him that 'twasn't vital for Dunnabridge to be sold, though it might ease his pocket, and smooth his future to do so, 'specially as Duchy wanted the place rather bad, and had offered the value of it.
She got it out, and told him that an old, aged cousin had died, and left her a nice little skuat of money; and how she'd never touched a penny but let it goody in the bank; and how she prayed and hoped 'twould help 'em to Dunnabridge; and how, of course, he must have the handling of it, being a man, and so cruel clever in such things.
But one thing appeared to be fairly true about it; which was, that when the miser died, and Dunnabridge went to his cousin, the horseracer, not a penny of his fortune ever came into the sight of living men.
Bad uns there'll be in every generation of a race; but the trouble begins when a bad un chances to be up top; and if the head of the family is a drunkard, or a spendthrift, or built on too free and flowing a pattern for this work-a-day shop, then the next generation may look out for squalls, as the sailor-men say. 'Twas Jonathan's grandfather that did the harm at Dunnabridge.
Of course the man pooh-poohed such foolery, and told the old chap not to talk nonsense like that in the ear of the nineteenth century; but when Jonathan and Parsons had got out of the train which they did do at Yelverton station Hyssop, as knowed the old man, axed him to tell more about the miser; and he explained, so well as he knew how, that Brimpson Drake had made untold thousands out of the French and American prisoners, and that, without doubt, 'twas all hidden even to this day at Dunnabridge.
And the next chapter of the story was told by Jonathan himself to his two men on the first day of the following year. There was but little light of morning just then, and the three of 'em were putting down some bread and bacon and a quart of tea by candlelight in the Dunnabridge kitchen, when Thomas saw that his master weren't eating nothing to name.
By good chance, however, Tom Drake had but one child a boy the Jonathan as I be telling about; and when his father and grandfather passed away, within a year of each other, Dunnabridge was left to Tom's widow and her son, him then being twenty-two.
So there, you might say, lies the text of the tale of Jonathan Drake, of Dunnabridge Farm, a tenement in the Forest of Dartymoor. 'Twas Naboth's vineyard to Duchy, and the greedy thing would have given a very fair price for it, without a doubt; but the Drake folk held their land, and wouldn't part with it, and boasted a freehold of fifty acres in the very midst of the Forest.
Them as believe in such dark things and I don't say I do, and I don't say I don't them as know of such mysteries happening in their own recollection, or in the memory of their friends, would doubtless say that Miser Brimpson still creeps around his gold now and again; and if that money be within the four corners of Dunnabridge Farm, and if Jonathan happed to be on the lookout on the rightful night and at the rightful moment, 'tis almost any odds but he might see his forbear sitting over his money-bags like a hen on a clutch of eggs, and so recover the hoard."
Hyssop wanted to hide golden sovereigns at Dunnabridge; but her uncle, with wonnerful wit, pointed out that they'd all be dated; and to get three hundred sovereigns and more a hundred years old could never have been managed.
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