How the lameness had been caused
he could not pretend to say. The groom who was at the horse's
head, and who evidently knew how these things were done, might
have struck a nerve in the horse's foot with his boot. But when
the horse was got into the stable, he, Tifto,--so he declared,--at
once ran out to send for the farrier. During the minutes so
occupied, the operation must have been made with the nail. That
was Tifto's story,--and as he kept his ground, there were some few
who believed it.
But though the story was so far good, he had at moments been
imprudent, and had talked when he should have been silent. The
whole matter had been a torment to him. In the first place his
conscience made him miserable. As long as it had been possible to
prevent the evil he had hoped to make a clean breast of it to Lord
Silverbridge. Up to this period of his life everything had been
'square' with him. He had betted 'square', and had ridden
'square', and had run horses 'square'. He had taken a pride in
this, as though it had been a great virtue. It was not without
great inward grief that he had deprived himself of the
consolations of those reflections! But when he had approached his
noble partner, his noble partner snubbed him at every turn,--and he
did the deed.
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