"The bottle was Blight's, was it not?" broke in Mr. Pound.
"Yes, sir," I said.
It had dawned on me the afternoon before, as James and I rode home, just what was the medicine I had taken. It was hard for me to believe that the vilely tasting stuff was whiskey, which I had heard men drank for pleasure, but when all doubt was removed by the exclamations of the crowd who hovered about the prostrate man I was overwhelmed by a sense of my own sin. Yet I had feared to confess to my mother the dose which I had taken. It would only make her unhappy, I had told myself, and I had tried to still my turbulent conscience with the plea that my silence was saving others. Now simple justice demanded that I tell everything, even to the admission of my own fault.
"Father," I cried, "the Professor didn't want James——"
"It is high time the community were rid of this man," Mr. Pound interrupted.
"David!" said my father, and I shrank into the minister's shadow.
"And it seems to me, Squire Crumple," Mr. Pound went on, "it is clearly your duty as a justice of the peace to act."
"Act how?" cried the astonished squire.
"Have him arrested!" replied Mr. Pound, making the dishes rattle under the impact of his fist on the table.
At this suggestion every one forgot the dinner and sat up very straight, staring in amazement at the bold propounder of it.