ld break
her very heart if I got a month, and very likely make her throw me over
and wreck my life, and so on. I worked myself up into a proper heat, and
pleaded all I knew with the man. I implored him to put mercy before
justice for once, and assured him that 'twould pay him a thousandfold to
let me off. I was contrite, and allowed that no doubt my views on the
subject of game might be altogether mistaken. I took his word for it that
he was right and I was wrong. In fact, I never talked so clever in all my
life afore; but at the end it was that the really thrilling thing fell
out. For then, just to make a good wind-up like, I called home my father's
oft-spoken words, and said to the man the very same speech that I'd said
to him more'n two years afore, when I was hid in the rhododendron bush.

"Don't you do it, or else you'll rue it!" I said. And then I stopped, and
my heart stopped too, I'll swear, for in an instant moment I saw that
Squire remembered when and where he'd heard that warning afore. He turned
a awful sort o' green colour, and started from his chair. Then he fell
back in it again and stared upon me as if I was a spectrum rose out of a
grave. He couldn't speak for a bit, but presently he linked up my voice
with the past, and squared it out and came to his senses. But he didn't
twist, nor turn, nor quail afore me. In fact, when he recovered a bit, he
was a good deal more interested than frightened.

"Those words!" he said. "Could it be--is it possible that you--"

"God's my judge, Squire Champernowne, that I didn't mean to touch on
that," I answered. "'Twas dead and buried in my heart, and the kind words
you have said to me would have made me keep it there for evermore. I ban't
your judge, though you be going to be mine, and I didn't speak them words
in no sense to threaten, and I didn't speak 'em to remind you as you'd
ever heard 'em before. 'Twas just because the words be solemn poetry," I
said. "'Twas just because of that I used 'em, and for no other reason."

He nodded and considered.

"Tell me," he answered in a simple, quiet way--"tell me everything you
know about that night from the beginning."

And so I did. I hid nought and explained all, even down to my feelings in
the matter, and my wish, man to man, to give him another chance for to do
right. And I never see a male creature so much moved as Squire was when I
telled the tale.

"I thought it was a miracle," he said very quietly, after I'd fin