text:  "And remember if we had taken poor Chesterton's advice and frightened them off at first all this might have been spared; it was my folly in determining to take upon myself the office of thief-taker--cursed folly it was!" The impression which the events of the last hour had left upon my own mind was any thing but a pleasant one; but I was obliged to assume an indifference which I did not feel and use a lighter tone than I should willingly have done in speaking of the death of a fellow-creature however unavoidable in order to keep up Brown's spirits and prevent him from dwelling upon his share in the catastrophe with that morbid degree of sensitiveness of the effects of which I began to be really apprehensive