"Ay, sir, it has been a sad time," answered Lease, in a low, patient voice, as if he felt worn out. "I little thought when I last shut you and Master Johnny into the carriage the morning you left, that misfortune was so close at hand." For, just before it happened, we had been at home for a day's holiday. "Well, tell us about it." Tod stood with his arm round the trunk of a tree, and I sat down on an opposite stump. Lease had very little to say; nothing, except that he must have forgotten to change the points. And that made Tod stare. Tod, like the Pater, was hasty by nature. Knowing Lease's good character, he had not supposed him guilty; and to hear the man quietly admit that he _was_ excited Tod's ire. "What do you mean, Lease?" "Mean, sir?" returned Lease, meekly. "Do you mean to say that you did _not_ attend to the points?--that you just let one train run on to the other?" "Yes, sir; that is how it must have been. I didn't believe it, sir, for a long time afterwards: not for several hours." "A long time, that," said Tod, an unpleasant sound of mockery in his tone. "No, sir; I know it's not much, counting by time," answered Lease patiently. "But nobody can ever picture how long those hours seemed to me. They were like years. I couldn't get the idea into me at all that I had not set the points as usual; it seemed a thing incredible; but, try as I would, I was unable to call to mind having done it." "Well, I must say that is a nice thing to confess to, Lease! And there was I, yesterday afternoon, taking your part and quarrelling with my father." "I am sorry for that, sir. I am not worth having my part taken in anything, since that happened." "But how came you to _do_ it?" "It's a question I shall never be able to answer, sir. We had a busy day, were on the run from morning till night, and there was a great deal of confusion at the station: but it was no worse than many a day that has gone before it." "Well, I shall be off," said Tod. "This has shut me up. I thought of going in for you, Lease, finding every one else was dead against you. A misfortune is a misfortune, but wilful carelessness is sin: and my father and his wife and my little sister were in the train. Come along, Johnny." "Directly, Tod. I'll catch you up. I say, Lease, how will it end?" I asked, as Tod went on. "It can't end better than two years' imprisonment for me, sir; and I suppose it may end worse. It is not _that_ I think of." "What else, then?"