"I earned the money, but the scoundrel didn't pay me," the old fellow broke in. "I've got hundreds of dollars owin' to me, but the rascals laugh at me. I cured old Thompson's sick horse--worked with him all night, nearly, and he gave me a dollar. Haven't earned five dollars! the devil! How can a man earn five dollars when a scoundrel pays him one dollar for fifteen dollars' worth of labor? The shirt ain't very thick. The knife will go in all right. Pop it." He smoothed his shirt and closed his eyes as if expecting the death blow. "You didn't let me get through," said Lyman. "I was going to say that your drinking did no particular harm. To meet your old cronies and to warm up with them is about all that is left to you of real enjoyment. Sooner or later we all live in the past, and there can be no very great evil in bringing the past near. So, now, if you will promise me to come home in as good condition as you can, I will give you five dollars." The old fellow gulped, wheeled about to hide his eyes and leant forward with his face in his hands. Lyman slipped a bank note between his fingers and without saying a word went up stairs. At breakfast the next morning, which was the day of the reunion of the gallant home guard, old Jasper was full of life and hope, but that night when Lyman came home, he found him leaning on the gate, unable to find the latch. "I'm all right," he said. "I believe you are," Lyman replied. "Am, for a fact. I promised to come in good shape. Here, all right." Lyman managed to get him to bed without disturbing anyone, but later at night he heard the women lashing him with their tongues. He knew that there was justice in the lashing and he dreaded lest they should cut at him for abetting the crime, but they did not, for at breakfast they smiled at him, doubtless not having discovered his complicity. The old man was heart-sick. "I want to see you," he said to Lyman, and leading him into the sitting-room, continued: "I have said it before, I know, but I want to say it now once for all that I'll never touch another drop as long as I live. Why, confound my old hide, don't I know exactly what it will do for me; and do you think I'll deliberately make a brute of myself? I won't, that's all. It's all right to bring the past back, that is, for a man who can do it, but it isn't for me, I tell you that. And I don't want to see those home guards any more. Why, if they had taken my advice, do you suppose they would have surrendered without firing a gun? They wouldn't. I argued with them and swore at them, but they stacked their guns; and then what could I do but surrender? That's neither here nor there, though--I'm never goin' to drink another drop. Oh, I've said it before--I know that, but it sticks, this time." CHAPTER XXXI. THERE CAME A CHECK.