“I’m sure I don’t know how we shall ever repay you, Joseph. It’s of the Lord’s marcies you happened to be here.”
This was perfect torture to Joe. His cheeks burned, and his conscience stung.
“I’m sure,” said the old man, “I don’t know what I shall do with that ram, now he’s got to be master.”
“I’ll take care of him,” said Joe.
He persuaded Sally Merrithew to go there, and stay till the old gentleman got better, then went and tied the ram’s legs, and, flinging him on his shoulders, carried him over to his father’s.
Sally was a girl of keen wit and excellent judgment. She had not the least doubt but that, in some way or other, Joe Griffin was at the bottom of the whole matter.
“How came he there at that time of day, when he ought to have been in Peter Brock’s shop?” was the query she raised in her own mind. His assiduous attentions to the old people had to her a suspicious look, and appeared very much like an effort to atone for an injury. The ram had never ventured on the ice before—how came he to then? Still these surmises afforded not a shadow of proof. She was greatly perplexed.
One morning she was milking, and, perceiving that her pail didn’t set even on the floor, moved it, and underneath was one of the ram’s shoes that Joe had dropped. In an instant she had a clew to the mystery. Perceiving that no one was in sight, she went to the spot of ice, found the prints of the ram’s corks, and compared them with the shoe.
“What a creature he is!” said Sally. “I was in hopes he had left off such things, after having been most smothered in a honey-pot, and scorched in the brush. He’s broke out again, worse than ever.”
Sunday night he came to see her, as usual.