"Well, I just hid myself in the 'browse' till it was dark, and then I creeps home empty-handed and never said a word to nobody. Well, next day, in the mine, I hears as how young Penlogan had been took up on the charge of trying to murder the squire. I never thought nobody would convict him, and if I'd been in the police court when he were sent to the Assizes I couldn't have kept the truth back. But you see I weren't there, and I says to myself that no jury with two ounces of brains will say he's guilty; and so I reckon I'd have held out till the Assizes if I hadn't heard they'd took his poor old mother off to the workhouse. That finished me. I says to myself, 'Jim Brewer, you're a coward,' I says, and I made up my mind then and there to tell the truth. And so I've come to you, being a parson and a magistrate. And the story I've told you is gospel truth, as sure as I'm a living man." "It seems a very great pity you did not tell this story before," the vicar said reflectively. "Ay, that's true enough. But I hadn't the courage somehow. You see, I made sure he'd come out all right in the end; and then I thought of mother and little Fred, and Jack and Mary and Peggy, and somehow I couldn't bring myself to face it. It was the poor woman being drove to the workhouse as did it. I think I'd rather die than that my mother should go there." "I really can't see, for the life of me, why you working people so much object to the workhouse," the vicar said, in a tone of irritation. "It's a very comfortable house; the inmates are well treated in every way, and there isn't a pauper in the House to-day that isn't better off than when outside." "Maybe it's the name of it, sir," the young man went on. "But I feel terrible bitter against the place. But the point now is, what are we going to do with Ralph Penlogan, and what are you going to do with me?" "Well, really I hardly know," the vicar said, looking uncomfortable. "You do not own to committing any crime. You were trespassing, certainly--perhaps I ought to say poaching. But--well, I think I ought to consult Mr. Tregonning, and--well, yes--Budda. Would you mind waiting while I send and ask Mr. Tregonning to come on?" "No; I'll do anything you wish. Now I've started, I want to go straight on to the end." Mr. Seccombe was back again in a few moments. "May I ask," he said, with his eyes on the carpet, "if you saw anyone on the afternoon in question, or if anyone saw you?" "Only Bilkins." "He's one of Sir John's gardeners, I think." "Very likely." "And you were in the plantation when he saw you?" "Oh no; I was on the common." "And you were carrying the gun?" "Well, you see, I pushed it into a furze bush when he come along, for, as I told you, I had no gun licence." "Did he speak to you?" "Ay. He passed the time of day, and asked if I had any sport." "And you saw no one else?" "Nobody but the squire."