yway, he was gone, and all that mattered
to me remained to get my neck out of the noose if it could be done.

And it was done, though more by the act of God than any particular
cleverness of man. But, primed with what I'd told him, Mr. Bates got up
Owlet's sleeve and, little by little, wormed out the truth. And Owlet,
who'd been on the razor edge over the job for a good bit with a mind
tottering, lost his nerve at last and gave himself away. He'd got in some
queer fashion to believe Bates was his friend and on his side, for these
deep detective chaps have a way often to show friendship to them they most
suspect; and so it happened; for Joshua let it out at last, finding the
other knew very near as much about it as he did. And then the darbies were
on him, and soon after they were off me.

He'd done it with a madman's cleverness, to free his girl and get her
back; and he went to a criminal lunatic asylum for his bit of work and
bides there yet. And as for Jenny, I left the rest to her and didn't lift
a finger to draw her to me no more. She came, however, and felt the Lord
had saved not only me alive, but her also.

For three year we worked at Oakshotts after that, as man and wife; and
then I took my pension and went into Little Silver to live. Because Sir
Walter got it into his head to marry again before it was too late, and his
new lady never liked me so well as he did. He'd applauded me far too much
to her, and 'tis always a fatal fact in human nature, that if you hear a
fellow-creature praised up to the sky, your mind takes an instant set
against 'em.

No. XV

THE NIGHT-HAWK

I

There's no doubt that a man's opinions change with his business, because
the point of view's just everything. What be good to you is what you want
to happen and think ought to happen; and if it don't happen, then you'm a
bit fretful about it, and reckon there's a screw loose somewhere in the
order of things. For instance, I be a gamekeeper to-day, and I take a view
of fish and birds according; but once on a time I was a fly-by-night young
rip of a poacher, and had a very different idea about feathers and fins.

"A fish be no more the bank-owner's fish than the water in the river be
his water!" That's what I used to say. Because a salmon--he's a sea-fish,
and free as air and his own master. Same with a bird. How do I know
whether 'twas Squire Tom, or Squire Dick, or Squire Harry as reared a
pheasant I happen to knock over on a