"'Tis a dreadful risk--an' me as never trusted a human soul since I was short-coated!" reflected the miser. "Yet nothing venture nothing have. A hundred would make up the thousand down along to Hangman's Hollow. An' it might fall out that after I'd got their money, 'twould be in my power to give 'em up to the prison people again. Seven of 'em. That would add up to twenty-one pound at three pound a head. There'll be ten pound anyway--clean profit afore I do anything. Then I'll make a journey, for I've got a bag full of small money waiting to go." She referred to her secret treasure-house in the Moor. Money she never kept beside her, but conveyed to her hoard at such times as the moon shone after midnight and she could count upon creeping over the wilderness unseen. Lovey Lee's answer was practical. Three days later she tramped to Ashburton and walked ten miles to that town and ten miles back again without weariness. Thus she killed two birds with one stone, for she purchased a hundred yards of thin copper wire, and she refreshed her mind as to the road and its nature. Mile by mile the old woman set down the track upon a sheet of paper bought at Ashburton for that purpose. She marked the features of the land upon it, wrote the names of the adjacent tors, and indicated bridges and rivers across which the highway passed. As for the wire, she purchased it ostensibly to make rabbit-snares, for which purpose it was chiefly sold. A few of the prisoners upon parole she also saw taking exercise, and knew them by their speech. Upon the following market day, Lovey appeared at the Prison with full baskets, and her big teeth closed tightly under her lips as the turnkey, from some unusual prick of conscience or accession of zeal, stopped her and overhauled her basket. "Hullo, missis, what's this, then?" he inquired, looking at a fine goose. "Your brother," said Mrs. Lee promptly. "Then best give him to me to bury decently, though 'twill be a cannibal act. You shall have a shilling for him." "A shilling! Look at the market rates? Geese be paid according to weight--an' this ere bird's nine pound if it's a grain. But ban't for you. I promised young Cecil Stark as he should have a goose to his birthday." "And so he shall then," said the turnkey. "Mr. Stark's a gentleman. He made me a toy for my child last week. 'Twas a clever little thing, fashioned like a windmill, out of mutton bones. I lay he'll do summat with the skeleton of that goose." The Americans greeted Lovey with their usual heartiness, but she refused to sell her bird until young Stark and his friends approached. Then, before he could make any remark, she lifted up her voice to him. "I've kep' my promise, young man, an' here's your birthday feast, though you may think yourself lucky it have reached you, for Mr. Turnkey there was terrible set upon it." "Thank you, Mrs. Lee; and the price?" "Half-a-crown, though a grasping party might ax three shilling."