passive resistance, they might carry him off to jail, and then all
this money would be laid bare to the world. Intolerable exposure!

He must hide it. . . . He must count it, and then--having staved off
Pamphlett--hide it tomorrow with all speed and cunning. When would
the dawn come?

The sun, in the longitude of Polpier, was actually due to rise a few
minutes before five o'clock. But Polpier (as I have told) lies in a
deep cleft of the hills. Nicky-Nan's parlour looked out on a mere
slit at the bottom of that cleft; and, moreover, the downfall of
plaster blocked half the lower portion of its tiny dirty window.

What with one hindrance and another, it was almost a quarter past
five before daylight began to glimmer in the parlour. It found him
on his knees--not in prayer, nor in thanksgiving, but eagerly feeling
over the grey pile of rubbish and digging into it with clawed
fingers.

An hour later, with so much of daylight about him as the window
permitted, he was still on his knees. Already he had collected more
than a hundred golden coins, putting them together in piles of
twenty.

The dawn had been chilly: but he was warm enough by this time.
Indeed, sweat soaked his shirt; beads of sweat gathered on his grey
eyebrows, and dripped, sometimes on his hands, sometimes on the pile
of old plaster--greyish-white, and fine almost as wood-ash--into
which they dug and dug, tearing the thin lathes aside, pouncing on
each coin brought to the surface.