The trout-fly settled all doubts in my mind as to his origin and his identity. He was not a "moonshiner"; he was my old trout fisherman, Jonathan Gordon, come back to life, even to his streaming, unkempt beard, leathery skin, thin, peaked nose, and deep, searching eyes. That the daisies which Jonathan loved were at that very moment blooming over his grave up in his New Hampshire hills, and had been for years back, made no difference to me. I could not be mistaken. The feeble old man sitting within ten feet of me, fidgeting about in his chair, the glare of the big windows flooding his face with light, his long legs tucked under him, his bony hands clasped together, the scanty gray hair adrift over his forehead, his slouch hat hooked over his knee, was my own Jonathan come back to life. His dog, George, too, was somewhere within reach, and so were his fishing-pole and creel, with its leather shoulder-band polished like a razor-strop. You who read this never saw Jonathan, perhaps, but you can easily carry his picture in your mind by remembering some one of the other old fellows you used to see on Sunday mornings hitching their horses to the fence outside of the country church, or sauntering through the woods with a fish-pole over their shoulders and a creel by their sides, or with their heads together on the porch of some cross-roads store, bartering eggs and butter for cotton cloth and brown sugar. All these simple-minded, open-aired, out-of-doors old fellows, with the bark on them, are very much alike. The only difference between the two men lay in the expression of the two faces. Jonathan always looked straight at you when he talked, so that you could fathom his eyes as you would fathom a deep pool that mirrored the stars. This old man's eyes wavered from one to another, lighting first on the jury, then on the buzzard of a District Attorney, and then on the Judge, with whom rested the freedom which meant life or which meant imprisonment: at his age--death. This wavering look was the look of a dog who had been an outcast for weeks, or who had been shut up with a chain about his throat; one who had received only kicks and cuffs for pats of tenderness--a cringing, pleading look ready to crouch beneath some fresh cruelty.