It must ha' been
arter she was lost that he got his money. Well, I feels sorry, like, as we
didn't try to find her friends. But the old gal were that onscrupulous,
she didn't stick at nothink, she didn't. As sure as my name's Jake Dafty,
this 'ere's a queer go."

Thus mused Jake, the tramp, sitting against the haystack; and his musings
were, ever and anon, disturbed by his racking cough. He felt indisposed
to move. As he brooded over the past, his mind became uneasy, he was
conscious of a vague desire to make confession of the evil he had done.
Did he feel that the sands of his life were almost sped? And was
conscience waking at last?

At length, between his fits of coughing, he was overtaken by sleep. The
night was chilly after the warm day. The sun went down, and the stars
peeped out serenely upon the frowzy and wretched tramp asleep against the
haystack; and the dew settled thickly on his ragged beard and tattered
clothes. Every now and then he was shaken by his cough; but he was weary,
and remained asleep. And, in his sleep, the past came back more vividly
than it had ever re-visited him in his waking hours. He seemed to be
present at the despoiling and ill-using of a dark-eyed child, whom he
might have delivered, and did not; and, from time to time, he moved
uneasily in his sleep, and groaned aloud.

Thus passed the night; and, in the morning, Jake, being found by the farm
people, in his place against the haystack, delirious, and evidently ill,
was conveyed to the workhouse.

The next day "the Golden Shoemaker" received word that a man who was dying
in the workhouse begged to see him at once. "Cobbler" Horn ordered his
closed carriage, and drove to the workhouse without delay. The man, who
was Jake, the tramp, had not long to live. His delirium was over now, and
he was quite himself. His eyes were fixed eagerly upon the face of
"Cobbler" Horn, as the latter entered the room.

"Are you 'the Golden Shoemaker'?" he asked.

"So I am sometimes called," replied "Cobbler" Horn, with a smile.

"Well--I ain't got much time--I'm the bloke wot stole your little 'un; me
and the old woman."

"Cobbler" Horn uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Yes. The old woman's gone. She died in quod. I don't know what they had
done to her. Perhaps nothink: maybe her time was come. I warn't that
sorry; she'd got to be a stroke too many for me. But I want to tell you
about the little 'un. I'm a going to die, and it 'ull be as well t