The Argosy — page 371: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Syllabub Feast. 357 “Well, yes, you can, Johnny. Don’t forget a Bible. Ten to one if he has one.” There were three brothers of these Standishes, Tom, Jim, and Dick, none of them particularly well-doing. Tom was no better than a kind of tramp, reappearing in the village only by fits and starts ; Jim, who had married Mary Picker, was likewise given to roving abroad, until found and brought back by the parish ; Dick, as the Squire phrased it, was nothing but a poacher, and made his home mostly with Jim and Mary. The cottage was at our end of the parish; half a mile away ; and we put our best feet foremost. Dick lay upon the low bed in the loft. His illness had been very short and sharp ; it was scarcely a week yet since he was taken with it. Duffham had done his best; but the man was dying. Jim Standish was off on one of his roving expeditions, neither the parish nor the public knowing whither. The Squire sat by the bed, taking down the man’s confession at a small table, by the light of a small candle. I and Duffham stood to hear it; Mary Standish was sent down to the kitchen. What he said Cleared Fred Westerbrook—Duff ham had no doubt gathered so much before he came for the Squire. Just what Fred had told us of the events of the night, Dick Standish confirmed now. The Squire took all down ; and Dick signed it. I was screwing the little inkstand up to return it to my pocket, when Mr. Holland entered, Mary Standish having sent for him. Leaving him with the sick man, we came away. “Johnny, do you know, we might almost have made sure Fred Westerbrook was not guilty,” said the Squire, quite humbly, as we were crossing the turnip-field. “ But why on earth did he run away? Where is he?” “TI think he must be dead, sir. What news this will be for Mr. Westerbrook |” ‘Dear me, yes! I shall go to him with it in the morning.” When the moming came—which was Sunday—he was so impatient to be off that he could hardly finish his breakfast. ‘The master of the N. D. Farm, who no longer had energy or health to keep the old early hours, was only sitting down to his meal when the Squire got there. In his well-meaning but hot. way, he plunged into the narrative so cleverly that old Westerbrook nearly had a fit. “ Not guilty !”’ he stammered, when he came tohimself. ‘“ Fred not guilty ! Only met the poachers by accident !—was not the one that shot Gisby? Why, that’s what Johnny Ludlow was trying te make me believe only a day or two ago!” ‘Johnny did? Oh, he often sees through a stone wall. It’s true, anyway, Westerbrook. Fred never had a gun in his hand that night.” “‘'Then—knowing himself innocent, why on earth does he stay away?” NOOKS a) COLMA ii