"To be sure, your Worship; a lie on the back of another lie makes un go heavier." "Well, never mind; only this I did. For a few days perhaps I was overcome; and the illness of my dear old friend, the Squire, and the trouble of managing so that he should not hear anything to kill him; and my own slowness at the back of it all; for I never, as you know, am hasty--these things, one and another, kept me from going on horseback anywhere." "To be sure, your Worship, to be sure. You ought to be always a-horseback. I've a-seed you many times on the Bench; but you looks a very poor stick there compared to what 'ee be a-horseback." "Now, Cripps, where is your reverence? You call me 'your Worship,' and in the same breath contemn my judicial functions. I must commit you for a week's hard labour at getting in and out of your own cart, if you will not allow me to speak, Cripps. At last I have frightened you, have I? Then let me secure the result in silence. Well, after the weather began to change from that tremendous frost and snow, and the poor Squire fell into the quiet state that he has been in ever since, I found that nothing would do for me, my health not being quite as usual----" "Oh, your Worship was wonderfully kind; they told me you was as good as any old woman in the room almost!" "Except to take long rides, Cripps, nothing at all would do for me. And, not to speak of myself too much, I believe that saved me from falling into a weak, and spooney, and godless state. I assure you there were times--however, never mind that, I am all right now, and----" "Thank the Lord! you ought to say, sir; but you great Squires upon the bench----" "Thank the Lord! I do say, Cripps; I thank Him every day for it. But if I may edge in a word, in your unusually eloquent state, I will tell you just what happened to me. I never believed, and never will, that poor Miss Oglander is dead. The coroner and the jury believed that they had her remains before them, although for the Squire's sake they forbore to identify her in the verdict. Your sister, no doubt, believed the same; and so did almost every one. I could not go, I could not go--no doubt I was a fool; but I could not face the chance of what I might see, after what I had heard of it. Well, I began to ride about, saying nothing of course to any one. And the more I rode, the more my spirit and faith in good things came back to me. And I think I have been rewarded, Cripps; at last I have been rewarded. It is not very much; but still it is like a flash of light to me. I have found out the man with the horrible voice." "Lord have mercy upon me! your Worship--the man as laid hold of the pick-axe!" "I have found him, Cripps, I do believe. But rather by pure luck than skill." "There be no such thing as luck, your Worship; if you will excoose me. The Lord in heaven is the master of us!"