"Skene--Skene! He--the attorney? You suppose him to be my uncle?" I gasped forth the words as one drowning. He nodded. "It maketh the matter simple to suppose so," he said, "which else is hardly to be understood." Perplexed as I then was, I could scarce believe him, albeit whatever survey of the matter I made, I confessed the indications directed me, after infinite wanderings, ever back to the same point, which was that my uncle had manifestly lied in writing that he was kept prisoner, and by our belief in that lie, who but himself did he mean should benefit? Yet unless he were indeed Skene (and so received our twice five hundred pounds) he had gained nothing upon that throw, but lost it to another more cunning than he, which were a thing I thought scarcely to be credited. The weight of this disclosure so whelmed me that I could do nor say no more, but throwing my arm along the table, had my face down in it to hide the tears which would have course, try as I might to restrain them. Good Dame Nelson, all blubbered too, leant over my shoulder to comfort me, although her sympathy must have been something doubtfully extended to one that wept because his uncle was proved to be not a prisoner, but in the full enjoyment of his liberty. But after continuing in this case some while there came into my mind some considerations of revenge, and they greatly comforting me, I sat upright in my chair, and begged the tolerance of the two men for my late weakness. "Nay, say no more of it, lad," replied Mr. Nelson, "for no man liketh to think of a villain at large, and in particular, if the villain be of the family." And so, calling to his wife to serve up the supper, and to us to seat ourselves about the board, he did his best to make me forget, for that while, my troubles. However I could eat but little, though I made appearance as if I relished the wholesome steaming food; and not I only, but the sergeant-yeoman also, I soon perceived, did eat sparingly, and as one whose mind was absent from the feast. And soon he ceased altogether, laying aside his knife and platter and clearing his throat with a sort of sob (which was the prelude to as moving a tale as ever I heard) and resting his great bearded cheek upon his hand. "Why, what ails you, master sergeant?" cried Dame Nelson in quick compassion; but it was to his brother, and not her, that he replied-- "You spake truly, Gregory," said he, "when you told Master Cleeve that no man loveth to think of a villain at large if he be of one's own family. But you spake it to my shame." "I intended it not so, truly," said the warden very earnestly. "I know it," said the yeoman, "but yet when you brought in the family it touched me pretty near. Stay!" he said, when he saw that Gregory would have interposed some further excuse. "You have not altogether forgot my boy, Jack, that went a shipman in the Green Dragon upon a voyage into Barbary, two year since."