who'd saved his life--leastways, so
they say--the barren-hearted monster!"

"It's ill-luck to serve a bad man, Sim. Well?"

"I never quite thought he'd do it; no, I never did quite think it. Why
is it not a good deed to kill a bad man?"

"How did it happen, Sim?" said Ralph.

"I hardly know--that's the truth. You mind well enough it was the day
that Abraham Coward, my landlord, called for his rent. It was the day
the poor woman and her two wee barns took shelter with me. You looked
in on me that night, you remember. Well, when you left me--do you
recollect _how_?"

"Yes, Sim."

"My heart was fair maizlet before, but that--that--kiss infected my
brain. I must have been mad, Ralph, that's the fact, when I thought of
what the man meant to do to the only friend I had left in the
world--my own friend and my poor little girl's. I went out to the
lanes and wandered about. It was very dark. Suddenly the awful thought
came back upon me, it did. I was standing at the crossways, where the
road goes off to Gaskarth. I knew Wilson must come by that road.
Something commanded me to walk on. I had been halting, but now a
dreadful force compelled me to go--ay, compelled me. I don't know what
it was, but it seemed as if I'd no power against it, none. It stifled
all my scruples, all of them, and I ran--yes, ran. But I was weak, and
had to stop for breath. My heart was beating loud, and I pressed my
hand hard upon it as I leaned against the wall of the old bridge
yonder. It went thump, thump. Then I could hear him coming. I knew his
step. He was not far off, but I couldn't stir; no, not stir. My breath
seemed all to leave me when I moved. He was coming closer, he was, and
in the distance beyont him I could hear the clatter of a horse's feet
on the road. The man on the horse was far off, but he galloped, he
galloped. It must be done now, I thought; now or not at all. I--I
picked up a stone that lay near, I did, and tried to go forward, but
fell back, back. I was powerless. That weakness was agony, it was.
Wilson had not reached the spot where I stood when the man on the
horse had overtaken him. I heard him speak as the man rode past. Then
I saw it was your father, and that he turned back. There were high
words on his side, and I could hear Wilson's bitter laugh--you
recollect that laugh?"

"Yes, yes; well?"

"In a moment Angus had jumped from the horse's back--and then I heard
a thud--and that's all."

"Is that all you know?"