day at that spot; and there were many more meetings, and they were fond
of each other; but after she told him that something had happened to
her he never came again. When she made enquiries she found he had given
her a false name and address, and so she lost sight of him. Then her
child was born, and she lived with her mother. And you must know what
her life was--she and her old mother and her baby and nothing to keep
them. And though she was a shy ignorant girl she made up her mind to
look for him until she found him to make him pay for the child. She
said he had come on his horse so often to see her that he could not be
too far away, and every morning she would go off in search of him, and
she spent weeks and months tramping about the country, visiting all the
villages for many miles round looking for him. And one day in a small
village six miles from her home she caught sight of him galloping by on
his horse, and seeing a woman standing outside a cottage she ran to her
and asked who that young man was who had just ridden by. The woman told
her she thought it was Mr. Antony Prage of Red Pit Farm, about two
miles from the village. Then the girl came home and was advised what to
do. She had to do it all herself as there was no money to buy a lawyer,
so she had him brought to court and told her own story, and the judge
was very gentle with her and drew out all the particulars. But Mr.
Prage had got a lawyer, and when the girl had finished her story he got
up and put just one question to her. First he called on Antony Prage to
stand up in court, then he said to her, "Do you swear that the man
standing before you is the father of your child?"

And just when he put that question Antony's brother Martin, who had
been sitting at the back of the court, got up, and coming forward stood
at his brother's side. The girl stared at the two, standing together,
too astonished to speak for some time. She looked from one to the other
and at last said, "I swear it is one of them." That, the lawyer said,