"Yes, yes, horrible," cried Distin, hastily, and he turned sharply round to follow the rector.

At that moment the constable touched him on the shoulder with the broken stick, and Distin started round and in spite of himself shivered at the sight of the pieces.

"Yes," he said hoa.r.s.ely, as his face now was ghastly. "You want to speak to me?"

"Yes, sir, just a word or two. Would you mind telling me where you was yesterday afternoon--say from four to six o'clock?"

"I--I don't remember," said Distin. "Why do you ask?"

"The law has a right to ask questions, sir, and doesn't always care about answering of them," said the man with a twinkle of the eye. "You say you don't know where you was?"

"No. I am not sure. At the rectory, I think."

"You aren't sure, sir, but at the rectory, you think. Got rather a bad memory, haven't you, sir?"

"No, excellent," cried Distin desperately.

"You says as you was at the rectory yesterday afternoon when this here was done?"

"How do you know it was done in the afternoon," said Distin, quickly.

"Reason one, 'cause the young gent went in the afternoon to Lenby.

Reason two, 'cause he was digging them trifles o' taters, and young gents don't go digging them in the dark. That do, sir?"

"Yes. I feel sure now that I was at the rectory," said Distin, firmly.

"Then I must ha' made a mistake, sir--eyes nothing like so good as they was."

"What do you mean," cried Distin, changing colour once more.

"Oh, nothing, sir, nothing, only I made sure as I see you when I was out in my garden picking apples in the big old tree which is half mine, half my mate's. But of course it was my mistake. Thought you was going down the deep lane."

"Oh, no, I remember now," said Distin, carelessly; "I go out so much to think and study, that I often quite forget. Yes, I did go down the lane--of course, and I noticed how many blackberries there were on the banks."

"Ay, there are a lot, sir--a great lot to-year. The bairns gets quite basketsful of 'em."

"Are you coming, Distin?" cried the rector.

"Yes, sir, directly," cried Distin; and then haughtily, "Do you want to ask me any more questions, constable?"

"No, sir, thankye; that will do."

"Then, good-morning."

Distin walked away with his head up, and a nonchalant expression on his countenance, leaving the constable looking after him.

"Want to ask me any more questions, constable," he said, mimicking Distin's manner. "Then good-morning."

He stood frowning for a few minutes, and nodded his head decisively.

"Well," he said, "you're a gentleman, I suppose, and quite a scholard, or you wouldn't be at parson's, but if you aren't about as artful as they make 'em, I'm as thick-headed as a beetle. Poor lad! Only a sort o' foreigner, I suppose. What a blessing it is to be born a solid Englishman. Not as I've got a word again your Irishman and Scotchman, or your Welsh, if it comes to that, but what can you expect of a lad born out in a hot climate that aren't good for n.o.body but blacks?"

He took a piece of string out of his pocket, and very carefully tied the trowel and pieces of broken stick together as firmly as if they were to be despatched on a long journey. Then he opened the basket, peeped in, and frowned at the truffles, closed it up and went out.

"Any of you as likes can go in now," he said, and shaking his head solemnly as questions began to pour upon him from all sides respecting the stick and basket, he strode off with his colleague in the direction of the town, gaining soon upon the rector, who was too tired and faint to walk fast, for it was not his habit to pa.s.s the night out of bed, and take a walk of some hours' duration at early dawn.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

BATES IS OBSTINATE.

Gilmore reached the Little Manor to find Aunt Hannah ready to hurry out and meet him, and he shrank from giving his tidings, fearing that it would be a terrible shock.

But he could keep nothing back with those clear, trusting eyes fixed upon him, and he gave his message.

"You would not deceive me, Mr Gilmore?" she said. "You are sure that he is only badly hurt; the doctor--my husband--hasn't sent you on to soften worse news to come?"

"Indeed no," cried Gilmore warmly. "Don't think that. He is very bad.

It is not worse."

Aunt Hannah closed her eyes, and he saw her lips move for a few moments.

He could not hear the words she spoke, but he took off his hat, and bent his head till she laid her hand upon his arm.

"Thank G.o.d!" she said fervently. "I feared the worst. They are coming on, you say?"

"Yes, but it will be quite an hour before they can get here. You will excuse me, Mrs Lee, I want to get back to poor old Vane's side."

"Yes, go," she said cheerfully. "I shall be very busy getting ready for him. The doctor did not say that you were to take anything back?"

"No," said Gilmore; and he hurried away, admiring the poor little lady's fort.i.tude, for he could see that she was suffering keenly, and only too glad to be alone.

As he hurried back to the town he was conscious for the first time that his lower garments were still saturated and patched with dust; that his hands were torn and bleeding, and that his general aspect was about as disordered as it could possibly be. In fact he felt that he looked as if he had been spending the early morning trying to drag a pond, and that every one who saw him would be ready to jeer.

On the contrary, though he met dozens of people all eager to question him about Vane, no one appeared to take the slightest notice of his clothes, and he could not help learning how popular his friend was among the townsfolk, as he saw their faces a.s.sume an aspect of joy and relief.

"I wonder whether they would make so much fuss about me," he said to himself; and, unable to arrive at a self-satisfying conclusion, he began to think what a blank it would have made in their existence at the rectory if Vane had been found dead. From that, as he hurried along, he began to puzzle himself about the meaning of it all, and was as far off from a satisfactory conclusion as when he began, on coming in sight of the little procession with the doctor walking on one side of Vane, and Macey upon the other.

He had not spoken, but lay perfectly unconscious, and there was not the slightest change when, followed by nearly the whole of the inhabitants of Greythorpe, he was borne in at the Little Manor Gate, the crowd remaining out in the road waiting for such crumbs of news as Bruff brought to them from time to time.

There was not much to hear, only that the doctor had carefully examined Vane when he had been placed in bed, and found that his arms and shoulders were horribly beaten and bruised, and that the insensibility still lasted, while Doctor Lee had said something about fever as being a thing to dread.

They were the words of wisdom, for before many hours had pa.s.sed Vane was delirious and fighting to get out of bed and defend himself against an enemy always attacking him with a stick.

He did not speak, only shrank and cowered and then attacked in turn fiercely, producing once more the whole scene so vividly that the doctor and Aunt Hannah could picture everything save the enemy who had committed the a.s.sault.

The next evening, while the rector sat thinking over the bad news he had heard from the Little Manor half-an-hour before, Joseph tapped at the door to announce a visitor, and the rector said that he might be shown in.

Macey was at the Little Manor. Gilmore and Distin were in the grounds when the visitor was seen entering the gate, and the latter looked wildly round, as if seeking for the best way to escape; but mastering himself directly, he stood listening to Gilmore, who exclaimed: