“Once,” he answered, “after I had hidden and settled here, I was spying through the telescope above--(Ay,” he interrupted himself, to my exclamation, “they could be bold to capture the dying sorcerer, but to meddle with his tools was beyond their courage)--when I was witness of a characteristic little _affaire_ on the green below. There were a stilt-walker and his wench--a couple of the wandering tribe--a long-legged bird of passage and his little _cocotte_ of bright plumage. I could see her glitter where I stood--could see her spangles, and the ribbons float from her tambour as she danced. And then suddenly my lord viscount was on the scene. He had been sporting, and carried his gun. He had keepers with him (they were his own; not, as might have seemed apter to his wits, Dr. Peel’s); and his dogs ‘pointed’ at the gipsy, I suppose. Anyhow, there was an altercation; and the next I saw was the clown tipped up by his wooden heels, and lying prone. They carried off the girl--willing or unwilling, it would have needed a stronger telescope than the astrologer’s to discern--and presently the poor stunned fool came to his senses and sat up. I could see him try to gather his wits with his hand, plucking at his brow. He was alone, who had been in company. Where were the rest--his ravished mate, and the mob for whom she had tripped and sung? By and by I saw him, with many starts and delays, unbuckle his stilts, and, having shouldered them, hobble with slow, painful steps towards the village. He disappeared, and till night I sat thinking of him, and of the ‘Contrat Social,’ which M. Rousseau wrote for the angels, and which, therefore, you would not understand, Diana, though, for all my better sense, I adore you. About dark I descended into the woods at the back yonder; and there I came upon my stilt-walker seated dying against a tree. Yes, he was dying. His fall had shattered some ribs, and driven one into his lung, and death was already thawing the white snow on his face into patches of blue. I carried him up to the tower, and eased what I could of his agony, and received his last message to the world. It is a callous world, this world of ’87; a world of serf and Satan and Christianity crushed between. But I tell you I would rather give that message than receive it: would rather be Gogo, the clown and pariah, than the Viscount Salted with all his prospective acres. Well, he died, and I took a spade, and buried him at the foot of the tree where he had rested. Pray God it bears wholesome acorns, for why should he wish to poison the swine his brothers? Then I inherited his property; and a thought, an inspiration, occurred to me how I might use it. Was I not wont to stump the country, like a halting orator? I could stump it to higher purpose now--the purpose of your redemption. Sure the spirit of the dead clown would uphold me, for was it not privilege I fought? So, with no great practice necessary, I became a