ack against a stone, and
called us up to divert himself with his stick. He made the dogs yelp
first, and then he called to me. I didn't go very willingly; he had been
drinking harder than usual, and the more he drank the better he liked
his after-dinner amusement. He was in high good-humor that day, and
he hit me so hard that he toppled over, in his drunken state, with the
force of his own blow. He fell with his face in a puddle, and lay there
without moving. I and the dogs stood at a distance, and looked at him:
we thought he was feigning, to get us near and have another stroke at
us. He feigned so long that we ventured up to him at last. It took me
some time to pull him over; he was a heavy man. When I did get him on
his back, he was dead. We made all the outcry we could; but the dogs
were little, and I was little, and the place was lonely; and no help
came to us. I took his fiddle and his stick; I said to my two brothers,
'Come along, we must get our own living now;' and we went away
heavy-hearted, and left him on the moor. Unnatural as it may seem
to you, I was sorry for him. I kept his ugly name through all my
after-wanderings, and I have enough of the old leaven left in me to like
the sound of it still. Midwinter or Armadale, never mind my name now, we
will talk of that afterward; you must know the worst of me first."

"Why not the best of you?" said Mr. Brock, gently.

"Thank you, sir; but I am here to tell the truth. We will get on, if you
please, to the next chapter in my story. The dogs and I did badly, after
our master's death; our luck was against us. I lost one of my little
brothers--the best performer of the two; he was stolen, and I never
recovered him. My fiddle and my stilts were taken from me next, by main
force, by a tramp who was stronger than I. These misfortunes drew Tommy
and me--I beg your pardon, sir, I mean the dog--closer together than
ever.

"I think we had some kind of dim foreboding on both sides that we had not
done with our misfortunes yet; anyhow, it was not very long before we
were parted forever. We were neither of us thieves (our master had been
satisfied with teaching us to dance); but we both committed an invasion
of the rights of property, for all that. Young creatures, even when
they are half starved, cannot resist taking a run sometimes on a fine
morning. Tommy and I could not resist taking a run into a gentleman's
plantation; the gentleman preserved his game; and the gentleman