arrant to all men for breaking such an oath as that.
Listen; don't lose a word I'm saying! Don't look away into the room: the
stain of blood-guilt has defiled it forever! Hush! hush! hush! Let me
speak. Now your father's dead, I can't carry the horrid secret with me
into the grave. Just remember, Gabriel--try if you can't remember the
time before I was bedridden, ten years ago and more--it was about six
weeks, you know, before your mother's death; you can remember it by
that. You and all the children were in that room with your mother; you
were asleep, I think; it was night, not very late--only nine o'clock.
Your father and I were standing at the door, looking out at the heath in
the moonlight. He was so poor at that time, he had been obliged to sell
his own boat, and none of the neighbors would take him out fishing with
them--your father wasn't liked by any of the neighbors. Well; we saw
a stranger coming toward us; a very young man, with a knapsack on his
back. He looked like a gentleman, though he was but poorly dressed. He
came up, and told us he was dead tired, and didn't think he could reach
the town that night and asked if we would give him shelter till morning.
And your father said yes, if he would make no noise, because the wife
was ill, and the children were asleep. So he said all he wanted was
to go to sleep himself before the fire. We had nothing to give him
but black bread. He had better food with him than that, and undid his
knapsack to get at it, and--and--Gabriel! I'm sinking--drink! something
to drink--I'm parched with thirst."

Silent and deadly pale, Gabriel poured some of the cider from the
pitcher on the table into a drinking-cup, and gave it to the old man.
Slight as the stimulant was, its effect on him was almost instantaneous.
His dull eyes brightened a little, and he went on in the same whispering
tones as before:

"He pulled the food out of his knapsack rather in a hurry, so that some
of the other small things in it fell on the floor. Among these was a
pocketbook, which your father picked up and gave him back; and he put
it in his coat-pocket--there was a tear in one of the sides of the book,
and through the hole some bank-notes bulged out. I saw them, and so did
your father (don't move away, Gabriel; keep close, there's nothing in me
to shrink from). Well, he shared his food, like an honest fellow,
with us; and then put his hand in his pocket, and gave me four or five
livres, and then lay dow