"He knew it could not be long first, for the man's leg was crushed and
the bone splintered so terribly that it would never heal up, and that
the calm sense of comfort was a bad sign, for the limb was mortifying,
and unless that mortification was stopped the man must die."

"Poor fellow!" I ejaculated, for the old man told the story with such
earnestness that it seemed to be real.

"Yes, poor fellow! That is what the monk said as he thought of all the
herbs and decoctions he had made, and that not one of them would stop
the terrible change that was going on. He felt how helpless he was, and
at last, Grant, he sat down on the mossy old stone bench, and covering
his face with his hands, cried like a child."

"But he was a man," I said.

"Yes, my lad; but there are times when men are so prostrated by misery
and despair that they cry like women--not often--perhaps only once or
twice in a man's life. My monk cried bitterly, and then he jumped up,
feeling ashamed of himself, and began walking up and down. Then he went
and stood by the great fish stew, where the big carp and tench were
growing fatter as they fed by night and basked in the sunshine among the
water weeds by day; but no thought came to him as to how he could save
the poor fellow lying in the cell."

Old Brownsmith stopped to blow his nose on a brown-and-orange silk
handkerchief, and stroke two or three cats, while I sawed away very
slowly, waiting for what was to come.

"Then he went round by where one apple-tree, like that, had lost a
bough, and whose stump he had carefully trimmed--just as you are going
to trim that, Grant."

"I know," I cried, eagerly; "and then--"

"You attend to your apple-tree, sir, and let me tell my story," he said,
half gruffly, half in a good-humoured way, and I sawed away with my thin
saw till I was quite through, and the stump I had cut off fell with such
a bang that the cats all jumped in different directions, and then stared
back at the stump with dilated eyes, till, seeing that there was no
danger, one big Tom went and rubbed himself against it from end to end,
and the others followed suit.

"All at once, as he stood staring at the broken tree, an idea flashed
across his brain, Grant."

"Yes," I said, pruning-knife in hand.

"He knew that if he had not cut and trimmed off that branch the limb
would have gone on decaying right away, and perhaps have killed the
tree."

"Yes, of course," I said, still watching h