t when I'm so bad needed at home, I fail to see.
Here I am, with a crippled paw, a living to make for a large family,
and the babe maw left in my hands to tend and raise,--you might say with
my hands running over full,--now is there any sense in cooping me up
where I can't do none of it? I allow not--it's plumb ridiculous,--no
jury would be guilty of it; and if they was to, I haint willing to take
it."

"I allow you'll have to, if it comes," said the keeper, sternly. "You'd
ought to have thought of that sooner, and looked before you leaped. You
certainly done the nearsightedest job ever I heared of when you give
yourself up to the sheriff,--honest, I wouldn't have believed it of you,
Blant,--but of course your mind was clean unhinged by misery, and you
wa'n't accountable. And I'm sorry for you if you get sent up. But now
you've throwed yourself in the arms of the law, you got to lay there.
Whatever you do, take warning, and don't try no escapin' tricks here on
me, like you done on the sheriff last spring. Because, whatever
happens, and however good I like you--which I do, the best in the
world--I want you to ricollect that law is law, and I'm its sworn
gyuardeen, and obligated by my oath, and aiming to do my _whole duty_.
And also, that I haint no poor shakes at gun-practice myself, though I
may not be as sure a shot as you."

At the words, "as sure a shot as you," a spasm of anguish passed over
Blant's face. "I wish to God I never had been no kind of a shot at all
before I took the life of him I loved!" he exclaimed, wildly. "Don't
never tell me of it, or call it to my recollection that I had the surest
aim of any man in five counties; for the days of my gun-pride are over;
I have shot my last shoot!"

Cries of amazement and incredulity rose on all sides. "You're crazy,
Blant,--wouldn't you defend your life?" "Wouldn't you shoot for your
freedom?" "Wouldn't you fight for your land if the Cheevers tuck it
again?" To all of which he returned the solemn answer, "No,--none of
them things would now tempt me! The bullet that pierced my friend's
heart was my last! Not for life, not for freedom, not for old ancestral
land, will I shed another drap of human blood!"

Nucky heard these words of Blant's as if stunned and smitten, and walked
home beside me in a daze.

XXVI

"MARVLES" AND MARVELS

_Thursday._

Yesterday, when the ground was hard and smooth, but not too dry, marbles
struck the school like a li