a few months in the country. The gratitude which
he and all his family expressed to Brown as having been undoubtedly
the means of saving his life, was naturally unbounded; and it did more
than all else to reconcile him to the idea which haunted him, as he
declared, day and night, of having that man's blood upon his head. I
knew that Chesterton had warmly pressed him to come home with him; but
as his name was down for the approaching examination, for which he was
quite sufficiently prepared, it was not without astonishment that I
heard him one morning, just before Chesterton's departure, announce
his intention of going down with him and his father.

"I think," said he, "the constant sight of poor Harry will do me good
just now; I am not given to romancing, Hawthorne, as you know; but
waking or sleeping, when I am by myself, I see that man standing with
the crow-bar uplifted just as he was when I shot him; and I think, if
I can but manage to get Harry Chesterton's figure between him and me,
as it was that night, and feel that pulling the trigger perhaps saved
his life, why then the picture will be something less horrible that it
is now."

"Well," said I, "John, I think you do right; but I can tell you this,
that the same sort of _tableau_ is very often before my eyes; and the
horror that I feel is what I did then--seeing Chesterton's brains
knocked out, as I thought, and struggling in vain to get near him;
sooner than feel that again in reality--the thought of it is bad
enough--I'd shoot that villain ten times running, if I only had the
chance."

"You never _had_ the chance, Hawthorne; pray God you never _may_."

Such was nearly my last interview, for some years, with my friend John
Brown; for I had taken my degree and left college before he came up
again to pass his examination. He was subpoenaed, with myself, as a
witness on the trial of the man whom we had secured, which took place
at the next assizes; but I was informed by the prisoner's attorney of
his intention to plead guilty, the case against him being such a
strong one; Brown was thus enabled without much risk to remain in the
country with Chesterton, and we were both spared being placed in the
painful position of important witnesses in a trial of life and death.

The man's confession was full, and apparently honest; and it was a
satisfaction to find that the wretch who had fallen was a man of
well-known desperate character, and probably, as the prisoner
as