saw.  I would have shown your nephew, sir, riding down the narrow trace, like a peaceable gentleman; anon, sir, you should have seen Forrester coming along full tilt after him.  Forrester should have cried out with a whoop and a right royal oath; then Mr. Colleton would have heard him, and turned round to receive him.  But Forrester is drunk, you know, and will not understand the young man’s civilities.  He blunders out a volley of curses right and left, and bullies Master Colleton for a fight, which he declines.  But Forrester is too drunk to mind all that.  Without more ado, he mounts the young gentleman and is about to pluck out his eyes, when he feels the dirk in his ribs, and then they cut loose.  He gets the dirk from Master Colleton, and makes at him; but he picks up a hatchet that happens to be lying about, and drives at his head, and down drops Forrester, as he ought to, dead as a door-nail.”

“Good heavens! and why did you not bring these facts forward?  They surely could not have condemned him under these circumstances.”

“Bring them forward!  To be sure, I would have done so but, as I tell you, just when on the threshold, at the very entrance into the transaction, up pops this hasty young fellow—­I’m sorry to call your nephew so, Colonel Colleton—­but the fact is, he owes his situation entirely to himself.  I would have saved him, but he was obstinately bent on not being saved; and just as I commenced the affair, up he pops and tells me, before all the people, that I know nothing about it.  A pretty joke, indeed.  I know nothing about it, and it my business to know all about it.  Sir, it ruined him.  I saw, from that moment, how the cat would jump.  I pitied the poor fellow, but what more could I do?”

“But it is not too late—­we can memorialize the governor, we can put these facts in form, and by duly showing them with the accompanying proofs, we can obtain a new trial—­a respite.”

“Can’t be done now—­it’s too late.  Had I been let alone—­had not the youth come between me and my duty—­I would have saved him, sir, as under God, I have saved hundreds before.  But it’s too late now.”

“Oh, surely not too late! with the facts that you mention, if you will give me the names of the witnesses furnishing them, so that I can obtain their affidavits—­”

“Witnesses!—­what witnesses?”

“Why, did you not tell me of the manner in which Forrester assaulted my nephew, and forced upon him what he did as matter of self-defense?  Where is the proof of this?”

“Oh, proof!  Why, you did not think that was the true state of the case—­that was only the case I was to present to the jury.”

“And there is, then, no evidence for what you have said?”