on the far side of the engine.

"Oldster," he said, "'tis mutiny p'raps; but s'help me, if I ride a
mile longside that new face o' your'n!"

"Maybe you're right," his superior answered wearily. "You'd best go
up to the office, and get somebody sent down i' my place. And while
you're there, you might get me a third-class for Lewminster."

So this man travelled up to Lewminster as passenger, and found his
young wife's body among the two score stretched in a stable-yard
behind the smoking theatre, waiting to be claimed. And the day after
the funeral he left the railway company's service. He had saved a
bit, enough to rent a small cottage two miles from the cemetery where
his wife lay. Here he settled and tilled a small garden beside the
high-road.


Nothing seemed to be wrong with the man until the late summer, when
he stood before the Lewminster magistrates charged with a violent and
curiously wanton assault.

It appeared that one dim evening, late in August, a mild gentleman,
with Leghorn hat, spectacles, and a green gauze net, came sauntering
by the garden where the ex-engine-driver was pulling a basketful of
scarlet runners: that the prisoner had suddenly dropped his beans,
dashed out into the road, and catching the mild gentleman by the
throat had wrenched the butterfly net from his hand and belaboured
him with the handle till it broke.