"Minister," he answered with a solemn confidence, "minister and friends, my father at his death-hour expressly said that _he did not slay Bele Trenby_. He said that he laid no finger on him, that he fell into his own snare. This is what happened: He met my father on the moss, and said, 'Good evening, Liot.' And my father said, 'It is dark,' and spoke no more. You know--all of you know--they were ill friends and rivals; so, then, silence was the best. And if Bele had been content to be silent and tread slowly in my father's steps he had reached his ship in safety. But he must talk and he must hurry; and the first was not wanted, and the second was dangerous. And after a little my father's shoe-strings came undone, and he stooped to tie them--who wouldn't, where a false step or a fall might be death? And Bele went on, and called back to him, 'Is this the crossing?' And father had not finished fastening his shoes, and did not answer. So then Bele called again, and it is likely father would not be hurried by him, and he did not answer that time, either. And Bele said he was in the devil's temper, and went on at his own risk. And the next moment there was a cry, and my father lifted his head hastily, and the man had walked into the moss, and then who _could_ help him? But well I know, if help had been possible, my father would have given his own life to save life, even though the man was ten times his enemy. Over and over I have seen Liot Borson bring from the sea men who hated him, and whom no one else would venture life for. Never mortal man walked closer with God than Liot Borson. I, who have lived alone with him for twenty years, I know this; and I will dare to say that in the matter of Bele Trenby he did no worse, and perhaps a great deal better, than any other man would have done. Why was Bele on the moss? He was a sailor and a stranger. A man must have life-knowledge of the moss to walk it in the night-time. When my father was willing to guide him across it, was it too much that he should be silent, and that he should let his guide do a thing so necessary as to secure tightly his shoes on the soft, unstable ground? Was his guide to let go this safe precaution because Bele was in a hurry to reach his ship? Was Liot Borson to blame if the man's foolhardiness and insolent presumption led him into danger and death? As for me, I say this: I wish to be a man after my father's heart. For he was a righteous man in all his ways, and kind-hearted to every creature in trouble; and he was a life-saver, and not a murderer. And this I, his loving son, will maintain to my last breath. And if, after these words, any man says, 'Liot Borson was a murderer,' I will call him a cowardly liar and slanderer at Lerwick Market Cross, and follow the words to the end they deserve. And God knows I speak the truth, and the whole truth."