"There, now, you have him back. He'll do, I think."
His first words, when he could speak and saw clearly all about him, and felt the blood on his neck and shirt, were:
"Wife, forgie me. I'm a changed man. Send for't sir."
Which last phrase means, "Send for the clergyman."
When the vicar came and entered the little bedroom where the scared poacher, whose soul had died within him, was lying, still sick and weak, in his bed, and with a spirit that was prostrate with terror, Tom Chuff feebly beckoned the rest from the room, and, the door being closed, the good parson heard the strange confession, and with equal amazement the man's earnest and agitated vows of amendment, and his helpless appeals to him for support and counsel.
These, of course, were kindly met; and the visits of the rector, for some time, were frequent.
One day, when he took Tom Chuff's hand on bidding him good-bye, the sick man held it still, and said:
"Ye'r vicar o' Shackleton, sir, and if I sud dee, ye'll promise me a'e thing, as I a promised ye a many. I a said I'll never gie wife, nor barn, nor folk o' no sort, skelp nor sizzup more, and ye'll know o' me no more among the sipers. Nor never will Tom draw trigger, nor set a snare again, but in an honest way, and after that ye'll no make it a bootless bene for me, but bein', as I say, vicar o' Shackleton, and able to do as ye list, ye'll no let them bury me within twenty good yerd-wands measure o' the a'd beech trees that's round the churchyard of Shackleton."
"I see; you would have your grave, when your time really comes, a good way from the place where lay the grave you dreamed of."
"That's jest it. I'd lie at the bottom o' a marl-pit liefer! And I'd be laid in anither churchyard just to be shut o' my fear o' that, but that a' my kinsfolk is buried beyond in Shackleton, and ye'll gie me yer promise, and no break yer word."