"Not to take other men's goods!" cried Graves. "No, never! Guide you I will, in moments of difficulty; lead you I will, when you want it, but not to commit a crime, for then I am a sharer."
"What I shall ask you." said Gray, solemnly, "is to commit no crime. My purpose shall be to take no man's goods, but rather to restore to him who is deprived of it that which is his own."
"Swear to that!" exclaimed the other, "and I will lead you anywhere."
"I swear it now!" answered Gray; "and remember that, having sworn it, I shall never ask you to do anything but that which you now agree to do, and in consideration of which I give you your life. No questions, therefore, hereafter, even were I to ask you to lead me into the heart of Danemore Castle."
The madman laughed loud. "There should be none!" he answered; "for I know why you go."
"Indeed!" said Gray, with a smile; "but it is enough that you are willing. I trust to your word in everything, and doubt not that you will keep it to the letter. Hast thou any money, poor fellow?"
"Nothing but my crooked sixpence in my tobacco-box," replied the man, looking ruefully in his interrogator's face. "Pray, do not take that from me: it and I are old friends."
"I would rather give than take from thee," replied his companion. "There is a guinea to keep thee warm; and now thou art at liberty to go, so fare thee well."
As he said this, he turned away, and left the room, and poor Silly John continued gazing upon the gold piece in his palm with evident delight, though he held some curious consultations with himself regarding the lawfulness of taking money from such hands as those which had bestowed it. In those consultations much shrewd casuistry was mingled with much simple folly; but, in the end, the counsel for the defence, as usual, got the better, and he slipped the gold piece into his pouch, chuckling. He then crept quietly out of the inn; and, although it may seem strange to attach ourselves go particularly to a personage of the class and character of Silly John, yet must we nevertheless follow him a little further in his wanderings.
By the time that all this had passed, it was near midnight; and, instead of taking his way back to the little town of Moorhurst, the half-witted man walked on, with his peculiar halting gait, towards the high dim moors that might be seen rising dark and wild against the moonlight sky, like the gloomy track of difficulties and dangers which we too often find in life lying between us and the brighter region, lighted up by hope, beyond. On the edge of the moor was a low shed and a stack of fern, which the poor fellow must have remarked in some of his previous peregrinations; for towards these he directed his steps at once, pulled down a large quantity of the dry leaves, dragged them into the shed, and, having piled them up in a corner, nestled down therein, though not without having addressed a prayer and a thanksgiving towards the God whom, in all his madness, he never forgot. We will not inquire whether that act of adoration was couched in wild and wandering terms, whether it was connected or broken, reasonable or distracted--it was from the heart, and we are sure it was accepted.