But the other tarried, thoughtfully puffing his pipe.
"And the father was not dead?"
"'Twas only the living death," said the old man, now lighting a
lantern. "You know that grave in a poem of Sidney Trove:
'It has neither sod nor stone;
It has neither dust nor bone.'
He planned to be as one dead to the world."
"And the other man of mystery--who was he?"
"Some child of misfortune. He was befriended by the tinker and did
errands for him."
"He took the money to Trove that night the latter slept in the
woods?"
"And, for Darrel, returned to Thompson his own with usury.
Thompson was the chief creditor."
"With usury?"
"Yes; for years it lay under the bed of Darrel. By and by he put
the money in a savings bank--all but a few dollars."
"And why did he wait so long, before returning it?"
"He tried to be rid of the money, but was unable to find Thompson.
And Trove, he lived to repay every creditor. Ah, sir, he was a man
of a thousand."
"That story of Darrel's in the little shop--I see--it was fact in a
setting of fiction."
"That's all it pretended to be," said the old man of the hills.
"One more query," said the other. He was now mounted.
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