"I don't want to excuse my boy," said old Meyers, "for touching the young squire; and right sorry I am that he ever lifted a hand to him; but begging your honour's pardon, the young squire provoked him to it, and he did a great deal more than just admire my little girl's bantams.—Come, Jim, speak up, and tell the squire all about it."
"Ay, speak up and excuse yourself, you young rascal, if you can," said the angry squire; "and if you can't, you'll soon find your way into the inside of a prison for this. Talk of poaching! what is it to an assault upon the person?"
"I will speak up, then, your honour, since you wish it," said Jim Meyers, "and I'll tell the whole truth of how this came about." And then he told the whole story of the young squire having wanted to buy the bantams, and on his not being permitted to do so, of his endeavouring to take them by force. "And when I wouldn't let him carry away my sister's birds, he flew on me like a game cock, and in self-defence I struck him as I did."
"You said I murdered Jacob Dobbin," interrupted James Courtenay.
"Yes, I did," answered Jim Meyers, "and all the country says the same, and I only say what every one else says; ask anybody within five miles of this, and if they're not afraid to speak up, they'll tell just the same tale that I do."
"Murdered Jacob Dobbin!" ejaculated the squire in astonishment; "I don't believe my son ever lifted a hand to him,—you mean the crippled boy that died some time ago?"
"Yes, he means him," said Jim Meyers' father; "and 'tis true what the lad says, that folk for five miles round lay his death at the young squire's door, and say that a day will come when his blood will be required of him."
"Why, what happened?" asked the squire, beginning almost to tremble in his chair; for he knew that his son was given to very violent tempers, and was of a very arbitrary disposition; and he felt, moreover, within the depths of his own heart, that he had not checked him as he should. "What is the whole truth about this matter?"
"Come, speak up, Jim," said old Meyers; "you were poor Jacob's friend, and you know most about it;" the squire also added a word, encouraging the lad, who, thus emboldened, took courage and gave the squire the whole history of poor Jacob Dobbin's one moss-rose. He told him of the cripple's love for the plant, and how its one and only blossom had been rudely snatched away by the young squire, and how poor Jacob burst a blood vessel and finally died.
"And if your honour wants to know what became of the tree, you'll find it planted in the young squire's garden," added Jim, "and the gardener will tell you how it came there."