‘For my part,’ said Mrs Jonathan Prothero, when all were assembled, except Netta, in family conclave, ’I cannot see so much against the young man after all.  Such a fortune as his is not to be met with every day, and I must say he is very handsome and clever.’

Here we must remark that this lady’s sentiments had undergone a change, since it had been rumoured that Howel was worth more than a hundred thousand pounds.

‘I tell you what it is, ma’am,’ roared the farmer, ’if he were worth his weight in gold, he ’ouldn’t be a good match for any prudent ’ooman.  To my certain knowledge he drinks and gambles, and he shall never have my consent to marry Netta so long as I live, and you may tell him so.’

’I do not know enough of him, sir, to have any communication of the kind with him,’ said Mrs Jonathan, stiffly.

‘My dear,’ interposed mild Mrs Prothero, ’if he gets steady, and settles down, it might be better to let them marry, than to make them miserable for life.’

’Study! miserable! mother, you’re a—­I beg your pardon, but when Howel’s study, I’ll turn to smoking cigars.  Why, the very night of his father’s funeral he was half drunk, instead of being decent for once.’

’He couldn’t care much for his father, my dear; you must make allowances.’

‘An odd man, that Griff, brother David,’ said Mr Jonathan Prothero, as if just awaking from a dream.  ’Do you remember when we were lads together, and used to go up to Garn Goch looking for treasures?  I knew, even then, that it was an old British encampment, and began to speculate upon its date, and so on; you used to hunt rabbits, and provoke me by overturning the walls, but Griff got it into his head that there was money buried somewhere, and never ceased digging for it.  At last he found an old coin of very ancient date, and seeing that I wished to have it, he bargained with me, until he got all the money I had for it.  Of course the coin was worth any money, and satisfactorily proves that Garn Goch was an old British encampment at the time of the invasion of the Romans.’

’Well, brother, you are by the head!  That old coin is nothing but a well-used sixpence.’

’I have every reason to believe, and I am supported in my opinion by various antiquaries, that it bears the inscription either of Cunobelin or Caractacus.  There is a decided C, and we are told that money was coined in Britain in the time of Cunobelin.’

‘And how on earth did he get up to Garn Goch?’

’Why, you know that Caractacus commanded the Silures, or people of South Wales, against the Romans, and that they held out bravely, I have no shadow of doubt that Garn Goch was one of their strongholds.’

’But what can Garn Goch have to do with Netta and Howel?  Brother, I always shall say you are by the head with your antiquities.’

’Well, I think you had better let them marry, I really do.  It’s no good opposing young people, when they will have their own way at last.’