f he has, it is your duty, father, to take him out in the shed, and
give him as good a dressing as he ever had in his life."

Sam was on the point of confessing to the charge, as the best
explanation of the distressed condition he was in, when the added
threat exerted its natural influence on his decision.

"No, I han't fit with nobody," he said. "The boys in the village throw'd
stones at me; but I didn't throw none back, nor sass 'em, nor do nothing
but come as straight home as I could come."

"What is the matter, then?" demanded Mr. Royden, impatiently, taking him
by the shoulder and shaking him. "Speak out! What is it?"

"Fell down," mumbled Sam.

"Fell down?"

"Yes, sir, and hurt my ankle, so't I can't walk," he added, beginning to
blubber.

"How did you do that?"

Sam began, and detailed the most outrageous falsehood of which his
daring genius was capable. He had met with the most dreadful mischances,
by falling over a "big stun," which some villainous boys had rolled into
the road, expressly to place his limbs in peril, as he passed in the
dark.

"But how did the boys know how to lay the stone so exactly as to
accomplish their purpose?" asked Chester, suspecting the untruth.

For a moment Sam was posed. But his genius did not desert him.

"Oh," said he, "I always walk jest in one track along there by Mr.
Cobbett's, on the right-hand side, about a yard from the fence. I s'pose
they knowed it, and so rolled the stone up there."

"You tell the most absurd stories in the world," replied Chester,
indignantly. "Who do you expect is going to believe them? Now, let me
tell you, if I find you have been lying about that horse, and if you
have done him any mischief, I will tan you within an inch of your life!"

Sam hastened to declare that he had spoken gospel truth; at the same
time feeling a dreadful twinge of conscience at the thought that, for
aught he knew to the contrary, Frank might still be running, riderless,
twenty miles away.

Mrs. Royden now usurped the conversation, to give him a severe scolding,
in the midst of which he limped off to bed, to pass a sleepless, painful
and unhappy night, with his bruised limbs, and in the fear of
retribution, which was certain to follow, when his sin and lies should
all be found out.

"I wish," he said to himself, fifty times, "I wish I had told about the
horse; for, like as not, they wouldn't have licked me, and, if I _am_ to
have a licking, I'd rather have it