he run off, but jest as I turned towards the tavern, I see him a-coming back, kinder wild-like; so I slipped behind a lumber-pile, hoping he might come over the bridge, so I could lay my fingers on him.  The moon was about its highest, so I could see his face, plain as day,—­ white,—­skim-milk warn’t a circumstance to it,—­and his eyes wide open as they could stretch.  I tell you, he was wild!  He looked up and down a bit, mumbled somethin’ I couldn’t make out, and then what do you think that boy did?  Why, he jumped in, clothes and all, bold as a lion,—­plainly to save me from drowning, and me all the time a-spyin’ at him from behind a lumber-pile!  He was sarching for me, I knowed, for he swum up and down jest about there for the space maybe of a quarter of an hour.  And when he give it up at last, and come out, he kinder sunk down on the tow-path, and I heard him say plain enough, though he only whispered it,—­jest like a woman actor I see down to York oncet, playin’ in Guy something or other,—­she was a sort of an old gypsy devil,—­says he, ‘I am a murderer, then!’ Thinks I, ’Sonny, all but the murderer!’ And as he stood up again, he ’peared to suffer so, his face was so white, and his knees so shaky, that I says to myself, ‘Dan, you’ve carried the joke far enough.’  So I sings out to him, and comes out from behind the lumber-stack, but, Lord bless ye! he jest peeped round over his shoulder oncet, gave a kind of chokin’ scream like, and put out up the road as if the Devil was after him.  I knowed it warn’t no use to follow him, so I got on a dry shirt and went to bed.  The next day I went home, and I’d mighty near forgot all about it, only today I came to see Dr. Thorne for somethin’ to do my cold good, and he wantin’ to know how I ketched it brought the whole matter back again.”

“You’re an old brick, Buckhurst!” cried Mac, giving the jovial farmer a thundering slap on the back, and a hearty grasp of his hand; “and you shall drink the boy’s health with Ned and me this day, or I’ll know the reason why.  Ned Blount, a’n’t it glorious?  Said I not, you ill-omened bird, said I not, ’Il y a toujours un Dieu pour les enfans et pour les ivrognes’?—­So you came down with Thorne to ease the poor little fellow’s mind, did you, Buckhurst?  That’s right, and you shall see the picture, by Jove!  And you’ll say, when you see it, that such a picture were cheap at the cost of duckings for a dozen Buckhursts.  Now tell me truly, what do you think made him push you in?

“Of course, it was the pison, Sir,—­a baby like that wouldn’t harm a flea.  I thought maybe, until I see Dr. Thorne, that he done it out of mischieviousness, as boys will do, you know,—­jest as they steal a feller’s apples, and knock his turkeys of’n the roost,—­but yander’s not one of them kind; so he must ‘a’ been crazy, and I’m rael sorry he’s been so bad put to about it,—­I am, indeed.”

Here the inner door was opened, and Thorne joined us, with a moisture about his eyes that he used afterwards to deny most vehemently.