In a word, my purpose was to put the paper back in his path again, afore he got home; and not only that, but I meant to speak a word or two—just a voice he should hear out of the night. I might save his soul, and, whether or no, 'twas a sporting idea to try to do so. So I set to work, and even in them exciting moments I thought what strange messengers the Lord do choose to run His Almighty errands.

I knowed the way the young chap had to go, and how long 'twould take. Two miles from the river lay Woodcotes, and, by following over a hill and dropping down t'other side, I could get in his track again and be at the edge of the home gardens where he'd come out. I saved half a mile going that way, and would be able to get there long afore him.

Of course, all this went through my head a lot quicker than I set it down. Like a flash came my determination, and I acted on it, and ran through the night and headed him off, and hid in a rhododendron bush just by the main drive, where he'd leave the woods on his way home. And right in his path, where his feet must go, I'd put the tin canister. 'Twas dry again, and flashed in the moonlight so bright that he couldn't miss it nohow.

Still as a mouse I waited for him, and just over my head hooted an owl. "Hoo-hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" he shouted out; and another, long ways off, answered to him.

What should I say? was the question in my mind while I waited for Mr. Champernowne. And first I thought I'd say nothing at all; but then I reckoned 'twould be more solemn and like a miracle if I did. I minded a thing my father used to speak when I was a li'l one. He'd tell it out very serious, and being poetry made it still more so. "Don't you do it, else you'll rue it!" That's what my father used to tell me a score of times a day, when I was a boy, and the words somehow came in my mind that night. Therefore I resolved to speak 'em and make 'em sound so mysterious as I could, just when the young fellow found the canister.

It all went very well—in fact, a lot better than I'd hoped for, chance favoured me in a very peculiar way, and the Dowl hisself couldn't have planned a greater or more startling surprise for Cranston Champernowne. Along he came presently, with his head down and his shoulders up. Like a haunted creature he crept from the woods; his face was white, and misery stared out of it. Presently he looked upward at the moon, while he walked along like an old, tired man. And when I see his face, I was terrible glad I'd took such a lot of trouble for him, because 'twas properly ravaged with suffering. He came to the canister, and the owl was hollering for all he was worth, and the matter fell out like this. First Mister Champernowne catched sight of the canister and stood still, as if the sight had froze him; then the bird shouted, and I had to wait for him to shut up afore I had my say.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" went the owl. Then, the moment he stopped, I spoke, very loud and slow.

"Don't you do it, or else you'll rue it!" I said.

And the young man gazed up into the air and very near fell down in a fit, I believe, for he 'peared to think he'd heard but one voice, and that the owl was telling to him! I'm sure it must have been like that with him, for he cried aloud and he lifted up his hands, and he shook like a reed in the river.

"Good God in Heaven, what's this? Am I mad?" he says. Then the owl was frightened, and slipped away silent on open wing, and the young man stood still staring and panting. He put his hands over his face to wipe away the canister, for 'twas clear that he didn't believe the thing was real; but when he looked again, there it lay, glittering like a star—the very item he'd thrown in the deepest part of the river not an hour afore! Then he crept towards it very slow, as if 'twas a snake; and he bent and touched it and found it to be a real thing and not a dream. With that he picked it up and strained his ears to listen; and I could see the sweat shining on the face of 'un and the breath of the man puffing in a mist on the night air. He stood all doubtful for a little, while I bided so still that not a leaf moved; then he went on his way, like a creature sick or drunk, and he passed into the gardens and disappeared from sight.

I waited till he was properly gone, and after that I got back in the woods and returned to the river. Always a neat and tidy man—as poachers mostly are—I took the hayrake back to the field and wound up my lines. Then I went home, for 'twas peep of day by now, and I felt I'd done a very proper night's work, and wondered if there'd ever be anything to show for it.

Well, there wasn't—in fact, it looked much as if I'd done a miracle for nothing. Days passed by. Squire Champernowne got buried with a proper flare-up, and we heard that Mr. Cranston Champernowne was heir to Woodcotes and the farms and all. And next time I was out and about on the river according to my custom, I heard the owl hollering, and I said to the owl: "You and me had our trouble for nought, my old dear, for 'tis very clear he wouldn't listen to us. He was a hard case and a bad lot, and 'tis no good honest folk like you and me putting a man into the straight road if he won't bide in it."

And the owl—he goes—"Hoo-hoo-hoo!"—laughing like.

II

Two full years passed afore the end of my tale. The new Squire did very wisely, and was highly thought upon. He ruled well, for he had an old head on young shoulders, and he was a good landlord and a patient, sensible, and kind-hearted chap. He got engaged to be married also, and seemed so bright and cheerful as need be, and good friends with his brother Lawrence, and popular with high and low. Yet right well I knowed there was a cruel canker at his heart, for no well-born man could do the thing he'd done and not smart to his dying day and feel all his prosperity was poison. Not to mention the terrible shock as he had got from me on the night after his uncle's death.

I felt sure, somehow, as the truth would come out, and that I should hear more about that coorious evening. And so I did, but 'twas in a manner very different from what I guessed or expected. In a word, to be quite honest about it, I got into smart trouble myself one night—in October 'twas, and a brave year for pheasants. The chaps at Woodcotes outwitted me for the fust time in their lives, and cut short my little games. They set a trap for me, and I got catched. There's no need to dwell upon the details, but I found myself surrounded by six of 'em, and knowing very well that, if I showed fight, 'twould only be a long sight worse for me in the end, I threw up the sponge, gived 'em my air-gun—a wonderful weapon I'd got from a gipsy—and let 'em take me. I was red-handed by ill-fortune, which, indeed, they had meant me to be. In fact, they waited just where they knowed I was going to be busy, having fust throwed me off the scent very clever by letting one of their number tell a pack o' lies to a woman friend of mine in a public-house the night afore. She told me what a keeper had told her, and I believed it, and this was the result.

There weren't no lock-up within five miles, and so the men took me to Woodcotes till morning; and very pleased they was, and very proud of themselves, for I'd been a thorn in their hands for a good bit. And I said nought, understanding such matters, and knowing that every word you speak at such a time will be used against you.

And then we got to Woodcotes, and I had to speak, for though 'twas three in the morning or a bit later, young Squire, knowing about the thing, hadn't gone to bed. He commanded 'em to bring me afore him, and I came in, handcuffed, to his libery, and there he sat with a good fire and a book. And a very beautiful satin smoking-jacket he wore, and the room smelled of rich cigars. I blinked, coming in out of the dark, and he told the keepers to go till he'd had a talk along with me. And then he dressed me down properly, but not till his men was t'other side of the door.

He knowed all about my family and its success in the world, and its fame in all to do with sport, and he said that 'twas a crying sin and shame that such as me should break away and be a black sheep and get into trouble like this.

"'Tis a common theft, and nothing more nor less," he said. "You've been warned more than once, and you knew right well that, if you persisted, this would be the end of it."

Well, I made ready for a dig back, of course, and was going to surprise the man; but somehow he spoke so kind and generous and 'peared to be so properly sorry for me, that I struck another note. I thought I saw a chance of getting on his blind side and being let off, so I kept away from such a ticklish subject as the canister. Instead, I spoke very earnest of my hopes for the future, and promised faithful as I'd try to see the matter of pheasants and such like from his point of view. And I told him that I was tokened to a good girl—same as he was—and that 'twould break her very heart if I got a month, and very likely make her throw me over and wreck my life, and so on. I worked myself up into a proper heat, and pleaded all I knew with the man. I implored him to put mercy before justice for once, and assured him that 'twould pay him a thousandfold to let me off. I was contrite, and allowed that no doubt my views on the subject of game might be altogether mistaken. I took his word for it that he was right and I was wrong. In fact, I never talked so clever in all my life afore; but at the end it was that the really thrilling thing fell out. For then, just to make a good wind-up like, I called home my father's oft-spoken words, and said to the man the very same speech that I'd said to him more'n two years afore, when I was hid in the rhododendron bush.

"Don't you do it, or else you'll rue it!" I said. And then I stopped, and my heart stopped too, I'll swear, for in an instant moment I saw that Squire remembered when and where he'd heard that warning afore. He turned a awful sort o' green colour, and started from his chair. Then he fell back in it again and stared upon me as if I was a spectrum rose out of a grave. He couldn't speak for a bit, but presently he linked up my voice with the past, and squared it out and came to his senses. But he didn't twist, nor turn, nor quail afore me. In fact, when he recovered a bit, he was a good deal more interested than frightened.

"Those words!" he said. "Could it be—is it possible that you—"

"God's my judge, Squire Champernowne, that I didn't mean to touch on that," I answered. "'Twas dead and buried in my heart, and the kind words you have said to me would have made me keep it there for evermore. I ban't your judge, though you be going to be mine, and I didn't speak them words in no sense to threaten, and I didn't speak 'em to remind you as you'd ever heard 'em before. 'Twas just because the words be solemn poetry," I said. "'Twas just because of that I used 'em, and for no other reason."

He nodded and considered.

"Tell me," he answered in a simple, quiet way—"tell me everything you know about that night from the beginning."

And so I did. I hid nought and explained all, even down to my feelings in the matter, and my wish, man to man, to give him another chance for to do right. And I never see a male creature so much moved as Squire was when I telled the tale.

"I thought it was a miracle," he said very quietly, after I'd finished. Then, after a pause: "Yes, and so it was a miracle, and this is a miracle, too!"

Then he had his say.

"I would sooner have had this happen than anything in the world," he declared. "First, the mystery has been cleared up for me, and, secondly, the mystery can be cleared up for you. You did me the best turn that living man could have done for me—you put me right with myself. You'll stare at that, but it's true. I had done a crooked thing that night; but I did a straight one the next morning, for I was strong again by that time. The lawyer came then, and I showed him the codicil, which had come into my hands quite by chance the day before when I was searching for another paper. But he only laughed at it. My late uncle was a man of strong temper, a gusty, fiery man of moods and whims. His passions were like storms—he would forget them when they had swept over him. More than once in his life had he committed the gravest actions in a rage and entirely forgotten them afterwards, until he was reminded, by unpleasant results, of the things that he had done. 'Your uncle,' said the lawyer to me, 'well understood his own peculiarities, and was aware, long before his end came, that there existed evidences of his past ungovernable temper in the shape of unjust additions to his will and hasty alterations now regretted. Six months ago, when you were abroad, I visited him and made a will for him that revoked and annulled all that preceded it. You are the heir and the only heir.' So it appeared. And now I must ask you to see the proofs of what I tell you, for I shall not be at peace until you have done so. They are with my lawyers, and if you come to see me a week hence, they shall be here for you to read."

The young man was fussy, you see, and very tender about his honour, and didn't think I'd believe him. But, of course, I did.

"A week hence I shall be in klink, Squire," I said, and moved my handcuffs, just to remind him of the state of things. And then he had the head-keeper in and set me free. 'Twas a case of one good turn deserving another, no doubt; and though the young man never forgave himself for his one slip, he forgave me for my many, and a month from that day I went as third keeper to Woodcotes. And I never regretted it, I do assure you, nor more didn't he. I'm head-keeper now, and growing terrible old, and he's been dead these many years, but I'm hopeful and wishful to meet him again afore long, for he was a sportsman and more than a good master to me.

THE END