SOME OF OUR NEIGHBOURS. 129 



night?" he asked. "Anywhere will do." Just 

 for two seconds I hesitated. There was the 

 stable, and the hay; but I did not feel I could trust 

 the man. 



"No; I'm sorry I haven't," I said. "We are 

 full up." And so we were in the house. 



He repeated his request once, twice, three times. 



I turned and faced him. " I would prefer you 

 should go back to Nelson. Good-night." 



He went, and we thought he had gone right away. 

 But no; after a full minute there he was again, out- 

 side the packing-room window. He called to me, 

 saying, " What is your name, that I may know^ who 

 has given me work? " 



I told him. 



This time he did go away, and I never saw the 

 man again. Afterwards I congratulated myself that 

 that man did not make a homicidal attack upon me. 

 I cannot help thinking that it hung by little more than 

 a hair's breadth when he put his hand inside his 

 breast pocket, ostensibly feeling for a piece of paper 

 on which I might write the promise to give him work. 

 For in that pocket he carried a formidable weapon, 

 and that weapon he used not twenty minutes after he 

 had left our house. 



In the middle of the following morning somebody 

 came to me, saying, 



" Mr. Devitt, of the Provincial Police, wants to 

 see you." 



I wondered what was wrong. 



I went up to the house, for I was down in the 

 greenhouses when the message came. 



On reaching the yard outside the back door, I 



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