ke were fit for our little explanation.
The path wound down the meadow toward me, and I knew that he must come.
My firm intention was to spare him, if he gave me a chance of it; but he
never had the manners to do that.

"Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I heard
a firm, slow step coming down the narrow path. Then a figure appeared in
a stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a staff. Perhaps his
lordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty years, to times when he
told pretty stories here; and perhaps he laughed to himself to think how
well he had got out of it. Whatever his meditations were, I let him have
them out, and waited.

"If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him; but
he only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I clearly heard
him say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did I drink port-wine
for!' He struck the ground with his stick and came onward, thinking far
more of his feet than heart.

"Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself,
I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him.
The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon
him, the last that ever fell upon his body to its knowledge.

"'Fellow, out of the way!' he cried, with a most commanding voice and
air, though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him began to
rise.

"'You pass not here, and you never make another live step on this
earth,' I said, as calmly as now I speak, 'unless you obey my orders.'

"He saw his peril, but he had courage--perhaps his only virtue. 'Fool!
whoever you are,' he shouted, that his voice might fetch him help; 'none
of these moon-struck ways with me! If you want to rob me, try it!'

"'You know too well who I am,' I answered, as he made to push me back.
'Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice--to lick the dust, or be
dust! Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for perjury. On this
plank you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you ruined and cast by; and
now on this plank you shall kneel to her son and swear to obey him--or
else you die!'

"In spite of all his pride, he trembled as if I had been Death himself,
instead of his own dear eldest son.

"'What do you want!' As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety rail
and shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook. 'How much will
satisfy you?'

"'Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late