a black, tin,
waterproof canister a foot long; and, working at it, the lid soon came
off. Inside was one piece of paper and no more. That was all the canister
hid; and the next thing I done was to light up my lantern and see what
wonderful matter it could be as the young man was at such pains to do away
with so careful. For Woodcotes House was two mile from the river, and
Cranston Champernowne had been at all this trouble, you see, on the very
day of his uncle's death.

Well, I soon found out all about it, for the thing was simple enough. The
paper was a will, or, as I heard long after, a thing called a codicil--a
contrivance what you add to a will. And it revoked and denied everything
as the dead man had wrote before. In a few words the paper swept away
Squire Champernowne's former wills and testaments, and left Woodcotes to
Lawrence Champernowne, the son of General Sir Arthur and the brother of
the chap as had just flung the paper in the river.

So there 'twas, and even a slower-witted man than me might have read the
riddle in a moment. No doubt young Mister Cranston thought himself the
heir, and reckoned 'twas all cut and dried. Then, rummaging here and there
after his uncle was gone, he'd come upon this facer and found himself left
in the cold. The paper was dated two year back, and signed by two names of
women-servants at Woodcotes.

Well, I soon came to myself afore this great discovery, and though, no
doubt, the right and natural thing for me to have done, as a sporting sort
of blade always open to the main chance, would have been to go to Lawrence
Champernowne or his father, yet I hesitated; because, though I held a
poacher's ideas about game and such like, I wasn't different from other
folk in other matters. I'd got religion from my mother, for she taught me
the love of God, and father, the water-bailiff, he taught me the fear of
God likewise; and if you've got them two things properly balanced in your
intellects, you can't go far wrong. And at that moment the feeling in my
mind was not to be on the make. No, I swear to you I only felt sorry for
the young chap as had done this terrible deed. I was troubled for him, and
considered very like the temptation was too great, that he'd just fallen
into it in a natural fit of rage at his disappointment, and that
presently, when he came to his senses, he'd bitterly mourn such a
hookem-snivey deed. For, of course, Champernownes were great folk, high
above any small or