ow the ax
would figure in the tale when it was first flung at the trees; it would
have surprised the woodman to know how near our minds were, and how I
was but laying a more elaborate siege to the towers of pestilence. But
when the Squire spontaneously rushed on what half the countryside would
call certain death, I jumped at my chance. I followed him, and told him
all that he has told you. I don't suppose he'll ever forgive me now, but
that shan't prevent me saying that I admire him hugely for being what
people would call a lunatic and what is really a sportsman. It takes
rather a grand old man to make a joke in the grand style. He came down
so quick from the tree he had climbed that he had no time to pull his
hat off the bough it had caught in.

"At first I found I had made a miscalculation. I thought his
disappearance would be taken as his death, at least after a little time;
but Ashe told me there could be no formalities without a corpse. I
fear I was a little annoyed, but I soon set myself to the duty of
manufacturing a corpse. It's not hard for a doctor to get a skeleton;
indeed, I had one, but Mr. Paynter's energy was a day too early for me,
and I only got the bones into the well when he had already found it. His
story gave me another chance, however; I noted where the hole was in the
hat, and made a precisely corresponding hole in the skull. The reason
for creating the other clews may not be so obvious. It may not yet be
altogether apparent to you that I am not a fiend in human form. I could
not substantiate a murder without at least suggesting a murderer, and
I was resolved that if the crime happened to be traced to anybody, it
should be to me. So I'm not surprised you were puzzled about the
purpose of the rag round the ax, because it had no purpose, except to
incriminate the man who put it there. The chase had to end with me, and
when it was closing in at last the joke of it was too much for me, and
I fear I took liberties with the gentleman's easel and beard. I was the
only person who could risk it, being the only person who could at the
last moment produce the Squire and prove there had been no crime at all.
That, gentlemen, is the true story of the peacock trees; and that
bare crag up there, where the wind is whistling as it would over a
wilderness, is a waste place I have labored to make, as many men have
labored to make a cathedral.

"I don't think there is any more to say, and yet something moves in
my