It was the first time in his life that he had really yielded to any one, but he never thought of that; he only groaned and begged for reprieve.

The old man stopped when he felt that he had quite fulfilled his duty, as he understood it, and then spoke as follows to the boy, who lay collapsed on the ground: 

“There, my young man, get up and go into the house, and after this, remember and do just exactly as I tell you.  That’s all I want, but that I must have, and you must understand it.  I don’t want to be cruel to you, and I won’t be,—­but you must learn to mind, and you had better learn it now than later.  Don’t you ever do again what I tell you not to do, or I shall have to punish you even harder than this!”

“Dodd” rubbed his stinging legs and wondered if there was anything beyond what he had suffered.  He staggered to his feet and went to the house as limp as a rag.  He did not seek his mother, but went straight up stairs and threw himself upon the bed in the back room, where he cried for half an hour, and finally fell asleep.

As for the old gentleman, he went back to the barn all in a tremble, his hands shaking like an aspen and his heart in a flutter.

He busied himself here and there for a few minutes, but finally broke down completely and retired in to the granary, where be fell upon his knees, and with penitential tears besought the Lord to forgive him if he had done wrong, and to help him, in his last years, to keep the devil out of his heart and life.  He prayed for the boy too, and asked the God in whom he trusted to lead him in the right way as he grew out of youth into manhood.

And then he rose from his knees refreshed, and went about his business.  His heart was somewhat heavy, but he reviewed the whole situation and concluded that he had done the best thing, and so was content.  He knew that he had not maimed the child in any way, but had only caused him to suffer intense pain for a time, a sensation which would soon pass away, but the memory of which, and the dread of a repetition of which, he trusted, would endure for a lifetime.

At five o’clock he came into the house; and finding “Dodd” in fair good humor, playing with the children in the kitchen, he asked him to go with him and fetch the cows for milking.  The boy was off for his hat in an instant, and a moment later the two were seen, hand in hand, going down the lane that led to the pasture.

They chatted pleasantly as they went along.  They even referred freely to the affair of three hours before.  The old gentleman read him no terrible lesson as to his depravity, and his probable end of life upon the gallows if he persisted in so headstrong and wilful a course.  The story of the “forty she bears” he did not repeat to the youth, and no reference was made to the awful death of Jack Ketch.  He was too shrewd an observer of human nature to present anything as attractive as these things to the imagination of his grandson!