’You needn’t bother about me. I’m not afraid of you.’ And then it started howling, and I discovered that it was Fitzbattleaxe up on that ledge in the chimney again, and he kept me awake for hours. In the morning Ross said he must see if the ledge could not be bricked up somehow. We got a ladder and a light, and he rescued the kitten, who spat at him, and then he said,— ’Why, Meg, it’s such a wide ledge, and at the back there’s a small stone slab which seems to be loose. Shall I see if I can get it out? Give me something to poke it with.’ I gave him my best silver button-hook, and he jabbed about and broke it, but he eased out the stone and found behind a little hollow, and—yes—an old deed!—Such a nice one, though quite small. It is an Indenture made the two and twentieth day of January, 1645, in the one and twentieth year of the reign of our sovereign lord Charles by the grace of God of England, Scotland, ffrance, and Ireland, King Defender of the Faith. But the part that intrigues me is that it seems to be a kind of marriage settlement for ’George Albury gives to his wife Mary’—Gidger’s cottage—’in consideration of the love and affection he bore her.’ So Michael has only been repeating history. But why did Mary put her deed in my chimney? She must have got so grubby doing it. I’m sure her husband hated her to get so dirty, didn’t like her little hands so soiled; but perhaps her George was up that winter with King Charles’s army and she hid it there for safety, for the times were much disturbed and she was frightened. Women don’t like war, I know just how she felt. I wonder what George and Mary Albury thought that other winter morning, four years later, when their sovereign lord, who by the grace of God was King of England, ffrance, and Ireland, was beheaded on the scaffold in Whitehall. And every day now I say, ’Daddy’s on his way home,’ and Ross says, ’Won’t it be rotten if I just miss him?’ Yesterday in church the vicar announced that there was an awful outbreak of that bug at the local Red Cross hospital, that all the men were down with it, and nearly all the nurses, and the few of them who had escaped were worked to death. He asked for volunteers to help, not with the nursing, but in the kitchen. I told Ross coming home that I should offer, but he wouldn’t hear of it, because Toby once said years ago I ought not to go within a million miles of ’flu. But there are times when I don’t take kindly to the snaffle, as Sam would say. However, Ross is going to London to-morrow, so I said no more at the moment, and the conversation wandered off to the education and upbringing of the young. ’The poor Gidger doesn’t seem to get much bringing up,’ said Ross. ’Well, you’re her godfather,’ I retorted, ’you’re to blame; why don’t you teach her whether her name is N or M?’