tools. And would he spend his last sixpence for a shot
at a turkey, had he not known where to get more?«
    »Can I have possibly been so long a dupe! His manner has been rude to me, at
times; but I attributed it to his conceiving himself injured, and to his
mistaking the forms of the world.«
    »Haven't you been a dupe all your life, 'duke? and an't what you call
ignorance of forms deep cunning, to conceal his real character?«
    »If he were bent on deception, he would have concealed his knowledge, and
passed with us for an inferior man.«
    »He cannot. I could no more pass for a fool, myself, than I could fly.
Knowledge is not to be concealed, like a candle under a bushel.«
    »Richard,« said the Judge, turning to his cousin, »there are many reasons
against the truth of thy conjectures; but thou hast awakened suspicions which
must be satisfied. But why are we travelling here?«
    »Jotham, who has been much in the mountain latterly, being kept there by me
and Hiram, has made a discovery, which he will not explain, he says, for he is
bound by an oath; but the amount is, that he knows where the ore lies, and he
has this day begun to dig. I would not consent to the thing, 'duke, without your
knowledge, for the land is yours; - and now you know the reason of our ride. I
call this a countermine, ha!«
    »And where is the desirable spot?« asked the Judge, with an air half
comical, half serious.
    »At hand; and when we have visited that, I will show you one of the places
that we have found within a week, where our hunters have been amusing themselves
for six months past.«
    The gentlemen continued to discuss the matter, while their horses picked
their way under the branches of trees, and over the uneven ground of the
mountain. They soon arrived at the end of their journey, where, in truth, they
found Jotham already buried to his neck in a hole that he had been digging.
    Marmaduke questioned the miner very closely, as to his reasons for believing
in the existence of the precious metals near that particular spot; but the
fellow maintained an obstinate mystery in his answers. He asserted that he had
the best of reasons for what he did, and inquired of the Judge what portion of
the profits would fall to his own