Finally, in making you acquainted with old Hezekiah Tipton, it may be said that he was a notable miser of his time. To see him hobbling along the street in his snuff-colored coat, threadbare at the seams, and here and there neatly patched and darned, one might take him, perhaps, for a poor decent school-teacher of narrow means, but certainly not for one of the richest men in the county, as he was reputed to be. There were a great many stories concerning him in Southampton, many of them doubtless apocryphal, some of them based upon a foundation of truth. One such story was that every Sunday afternoon the old man used to enter into his own room, bolt the door, and spread gold money out on the floor; that he would then strip himself and roll in the yellow wealth as though taking a bath. Another story was that he had three iron chests in the garret of his home, each chest bolted to the floor with iron bolts. That the one chest was full of Spanish doubloons, the second full of French louis d’ors, the third full of English guineas. The Southampton tradesmen used to say that it was more difficult to collect their bills from Hezekiah Tipton than from almost any one in the town. CHAPTER II JACK BALLISTER JACK BALLISTER at this time was a little over sixteen years old, and had now been living with his uncle Tipton something over two years. Jack’s father at the time of his death had been vicar of Stalbridge for nearly nineteen years, so that Jack, until he had come to Southampton, had never known anything but that part of Wiltshire which immediately surrounded Stalbridge and Stalbridge vicarage. The only other inmates of the vicarage were old Janet, the housekeeper, and a farmer’s daughter who helped about the house, and old Giles Cobb, who came up now and then to work in the garden. There was, by the way, always a singular charm to Jack in the memories of this garden. Some of his earliest recollections were of playing out in the tangled sunny reaches while old Giles bent, with stooping shoulders and rounded back, over his work, digging and planting and picking about at the weeds in the brown, loamy beds. There was a yew hedge, and two bee hives that stood under a cherry tree, and a row of two or three cucumber frames that lay bright and shining, reflecting in their glassy surface the clouds and the warm sky above. There was always an association of flowers, of birds, and of warm yellow sunlight about the tangled, flowery space, and in the years afterwards, when Jack visited the old vicarage, one of the first places he went to was the garden. It looked strangely familiar yet strangely unfamiliar. It seemed more unkempt and uncared for. The birds were singing in the trees over beyond the hedge, but the two straw-thatched bee hives were gone. Nevertheless he could almost fancy that old Giles with his hunched shoulders and his smock frock might at any moment come in through the gate, trundling his squealing wheel-barrow before him.