"I don't want to ruin papa. He said he was going to turn--to turn me out of the house. I would go and drown myself in the lake if he did, or in one of those big dykes which divide the meadows. I am miserable among them--quite miserable. Edith never gives me any peace, day or night. She comes and sits in my bedroom, begging me to tell the truth. It ought to be enough when I say that I will hold my tongue. Papa can turn me out to drown myself if he pleases. Edith goes on cheating the words out of me till I don't know what I'm saying. If I am to be brought up to tell it all before the judge I shan't know what I have said before, or what I have not said." "_Nil conscire tibi_," said the father, who had already taught his son so much Latin as that. "But you did see the sluice gates torn down, and thrown back into the water?" said the Captain. Here Florian shook his head mournfully. "I understood you to acknowledge that you had seen the gates destroyed." "I never said as much to you," said the boy. "But you did to me," said Edith. "If a fellow says a word to you, it is repeated to all the world. I never would have you joined with me in a secret. You are a great deal worse than--, well, those fellows that you abuse me about. They never tell anything that they have heard among themselves, to people outside." "Pat Carroll, you mean?" asked the Captain. "He isn't the only one. There's more in it than him." "Oh yes; we know that. There were many others in it besides Pat Carroll, when they let the waters in through the dyke gates. There must have been twenty there." "No, there weren't--not that I saw." "A dozen, perhaps?" "You are laying traps for me, but I am not going to be caught. I was there, and I did see it. You may make the most of that. Though you have me up before the judge, I needn't say a word more than I please." "He is more obstinate," said his father, "than any rebel that you can meet." "But so mistaken," said the Captain, "because he can refuse to answer us who are treating him with such tenderness and affection, who did not even want to wound his feelings more than we can help, he thinks that he can hold his peace in the same fashion, before the entire court; and that he can do so, although he has owned that he knows the men." "I have never owned that," said the boy. "Not to your sister?" "I only owned to one." "Pat Carroll?" said the Captain; but giving the name merely as a hint to help the boy's memory. But the boy was too sharp for him. "That's another of your traps, Captain Clayton. If she says Pat Carroll, I can say it was Tim Brady. A boy's word will be as good as a girl's, I suppose." "A lie can never be as good as the truth, whether from a boy or a girl," said the Captain, endeavouring to look him through and through. The boy quavered beneath his gaze, and the Captain went on with his questioning. "I suppose we may take it for granted that Pat Carroll was there, and that you did see him?"