Betwixt my sense of public value (a definite sum, at any rate) and imagination of what my truly natural abilities might lead me to, if properly neglected, I found it a blessed hard thing to lie quiet until dark, and then slip out. And the more so, because my stock of food was all consumed by middle day; and before the sun went down, hunger of a great shape and size arose and raged within me. This is always difficult to discipline or to reason with; and to men of the common order it suggests great violence. To me it did nothing of that kind, but led me into a little shop, where I paid my money, and got my loaf. My flint and steel and tinderbox lay in my pocket handy. These I felt and felt again, and went into the woods and thought, and found that even want of food had failed to give me a thoroughgoing and consistent appetite. Because, for the first time in my life, I had shaped a strong resolve, and sworn to the Lord concerning it—to commit a downright crime, and one which I might be hanged for. Although everyone who has entered into my sufferings and my dignity must perceive how right I was, and would never inform against me, I will only say that on Saturday evening Parson Chowne had fourteen ricks, and on Sunday morning he had none, and might begin to understand the feelings of the many farmers who had been treated thus by him. Right gladly would I have beheld his face (so rigid and contemptuous at other people’s trouble) when he should come to contemplate his own works thus brought home to him. But I could not find a hedge thick enough to screen me from his terrible piercing eyes.
This little bit of righteous action made a stir, you may be sure, because it was so contrary to the custom of the neighbourhood. Although I went to see this fire, I took the finest care to leave no evidence behind me; and even turned my bits of toggery inside out at starting. But there was a general sense in among these people, that only a foreigner could have dared to fly in the Parson’s face so. I waited long enough to catch the turn of the public feeling, and finding it set hard against me, my foremost thought was the love of home.
Keeping this in view, and being pressed almost beyond bearing now, with no certainty, moreover, as to warrants coming out, and the people looking strangely, every time they met me, I could have no peace until I saw the beautiful young lady, and to her told everything. You should have seen her eyes and cheeks, as well as the way her heart went; and the pride with which she gathered all her meaning up to speak; even after I had told her how the ricks would burn themselves.
“You dear old Davy,” she said, “I never thought you had so much courage. You are the very bravest man—but stop, did you burn the whole of them?”
“Every one burned itself, your ladyship; I saw the ashes dying down, and his summerhouse as well took fire, through the mischief of the wind, and all his winter stock of wood, and his tool-house, and his—”
“Any more, any more, old David?”
“Yes, your ladyship, his cow-house, after the cows were all set free, and his new cart-shed fifty feet long, also his carpenter’s shop, and his cider-press.”
“You are the very best man,” she answered, with her beautiful eyes full upon me, “that I have seen, since I was a child. I must think what to do for you. Did you burn anything more, old Davy?”
“The fire did, your ladyship, three large barns, and a thing they call a ‘linhay;’ also the granary, and the meal-house, and the apple-room, and the churn-room, and only missed the dairy by a little nasty slant of wind.”
“What a good thing you have done! There is scarcely any man I know, that would have shown such courage. Mr. Llewellyn, is there anything in my power to do for you?”
Nothing could have pleased me more than to find this fair young lady rejoicing in this generous manner at the Parson’s misadventure. And her delight in the contemplation made me almost feel repentance at the delicate forbearance of the flames from the Rectory itself. But I could not help reflecting how intense and bitter must be this young harmless creature’s wrong received and dwelling in her mind, ere she could find pleasure from wild havoc and destruction.
“There is one thing you can do,” I answered very humbly; “and it is my only chance to escape from misconstruction. I never thought, at my time of life, to begin life so again. But I am now a homeless man, burned out of my latest refuge, and with none to care for me. Perhaps I may be taken up tomorrow, or the next day. And with such a man against me, it must end in hanging.”
“I never heard such a thing,” she said: “he tries to burn you in your bed, after blowing you up, and doing his very best to drown you; and then you are to be hanged because there is a bonfire on his premises! It is impossible, Mr. Llewellyn, to think twice of such a thing.”
“Your ladyship may be right,” I answered; “and in the case of someone else, reasoning would convince me. But
