h me if I wouldn't tear
their false tongues out of their throats, and throw them to the dogs!
_You_ don't mean to say you believe she did it?" fiercely demanded
Sybil's rough champion.

"No; Heaven knows I do not! I believe her to be as guiltless as an
angel."

"I'm glad to hear you say that! I don't want to pitch into an unarmed
man, but I should a' been strongly tempted to 'a done it if you'd said
anything else."

"You know this injured lady, then?"

"Yes; I have knowed her ever since she was a little gal. Not as ever I
met her face to face in my life, but I know her as every poor man and
poor child and poor brute in the whole country knows her: as the
kindest, gentlest, tenderest-hearted lady in the whole world--she who
has been known to take the fur cloak off her own back, and lay it over
the form of a sick beggar, while she went home in the cold to send her
warm blankets. Yes, and known to have done scores of deeds as good and
self-sacrificing as that. _She_ do the thing they accuse her of! Why,
sir, she no more did it than I, or you, or your own sweet wife did it!
And Satan burn _me_! when I hear of any man accusing her of it, if I
don't feel just like knocking his dull brains out, and taking the
consequences--that I do!" swore the farmer.

"I will trust him," said Lyon Berners to himself.

--"And to think that men who call themselves law officers, not to say
Christians, should hunt that lovely lady through the country as if she
was some wild beast or highway robber! I wish one of them hunters was to
come my way. I'm blowed to flinders if I wouldn't set my whole pack of
dogs on 'em till they would be torn to pieces. I'd give 'em hunting! But
excuse _me_, Mr.--Mr.--What's-your-name; I've gone away from the pint,
which I always do fly off at a tangent and lose my bearings whenever I
hear that lady accused. Now, sir, what had you to tell me to my
advantage?" inquired the farmer, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket
and wiping his heated face.

"I will tell him all," said Lyon Berners to himself; and then he spoke
up:

"First, good friend, let me assure you that you have not wandered a
hair's breadth from the point at issue between us."

"Oh yes, I have; for I have been raving about Mrs. Berners; but I
couldn't help it."

"Mrs. Berners is the lady who is with me," said Mr. Berners.

Farmer Nye jumped three feet from the ground and came down again like a
man that was shot, and then stood with open mout