The horse was standing under a tree, tired-looking.
Dad stood and looked at Donovan for fully half-a-minute without
speaking.

"Why, damn it!" he exclaimed, at last, "that's MY OWN horse...You don't
mean...S'help me! Old Bess's foal!" Donovan told him he was making a
mistake.

"Mistake be hanged!" replied Dad, walking round the animal. "Not much
of a mistake about HIM!"

Just here Dave appeared, as was proper.

"Do you know this horse?" Dad asked him. "Yes, of course," he
answered, surprisedly, with his eyes open wide, "Bess's foal!--of
course it is."

"There you are!" said Dad, grinning triumphantly.

Donovan seemed uneasy.

Joe in his turn appeared. Dad put the same question to him. Of course
Joe knew Bess's foal--"the one that got stole."

There was a silence.

"Now," said Dad, looking very grave, "what have y' got t' say? Who'd
y' get him off? Show's y'r receipt."

Donovan had nothing to say; he preferred to be silent.

"Then," Dad went on, "clear out of this as fast as you can go, an'
think y'rself lucky."

He cleared, but on foot.

Dad gazed after him, and, as he left the paddock, said:

"One too many f' y' that time, Mick Donovan!" Then to Dave, who was
still looking at the horse: "He's a stolen one right enough, but he's
a beauty, and we'll keep him; and if the owner ever comes for him,
well--if he is the owner--he can have him, that's all."

We had the horse for eighteen months and more. One day Dad rode him to
town. He was no sooner there than a man came up and claimed him. Dad
objected. The man went off and brought a policeman. "Orright"--Dad
said--"TAKE him." The policeman took him. He took Dad too. The
lawyer got Dad off, but it cost us five bags of potatoes. Dad did n't
grudge them, for he reckoned we'd had value. Besides, he was even with
the Donovans for the two cows.

Chapter XI.

A Splendid Year For Corn.

We had just finished supper. Supper! dry bread and sugarless tea. Dad
was tired out and was resting at one end of the sofa; Joe was stretched
at the other, without a pillow, and his legs tangled up among Dad's.
Bill and Tom squatted in the ashes, while Mother tried to put the
fat-lamp into burning order by poking it with a table-fork.

Dad was silent; he seemed sad, and lay for some time gazing at the
roof. He might have been watching the blaze of the glorious moon or
counting the stars through the gaps in the shingles, but he was
n't--there wa