john! He was lying just within, on the kitchen floor, dead. Blood
was round about him, and my gun, just discharged, was thrown near. He
had been shot in the side."

Richard stopped for breath. Mr. Carlyle did not speak.

"I called to Afy. No one answered. No one was in the lower room; and
it seemed that no one was in the upper. A sort of panic came over me, a
fear. You know they always said at home I was a coward: I could not have
remained another minute with that dead man, had it been to save my own
life. I caught up the gun, and was making off, when--"

"Why did you catch up the gun?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

"Ideas pass through our minds quicker than we can speak them, especially
in these sorts of moments," was the reply of Richard Hare. "Some vague
notion flashed on my brain that _my gun_ ought not to be found near
the murdered body of Hallijohn. I was flying from the door, I say, when
Locksley emerged from the wood, full in view; and what possessed me I
can't tell, but I did the worst thing I could do--flung the gun indoors
again, and got away, although Locksley called after me to stop."

"Nothing told against you so much as that," observed Mr. Carlyle.
"Locksley deposed that he had seen you leave the cottage, gun in
hand, apparently in great commotion; that the moment you saw him, you
hesitated, as from fear, flung back the gun, and escaped."

Richard stamped his foot. "Aye; and all owing to my cursed cowardice.
They had better have made a woman of me, and brought me up in
petticoats. But let me go on. I came upon Bethel. He was standing in
that half-circle where the trees have been cut. Now I knew that Bethel,
if he had gone straight in the direction of the cottage, must have met
Thorn quitting it. 'Did you encounter that hound?' I asked him. 'What
hound?' returned Bethel. 'That fine fellow, that Thorn, who comes after
Afy,' I answered, for I did not mind mentioning her name in my passion.
'I don't know any Thorn,' returned Bethel, 'and I did not know anybody
was after Afy but yourself.' 'Did you hear a shot?' I went on. 'Yes,
I did,' he replied; 'I suppose it was Locksley, for he's about this
evening,' 'And I saw you,' I continued, 'just at the moment the shot
was fired, turn round the corner in the direction of Hallijohn's.' 'So I
did,' he said, 'but only to strike into the wood, a few paces up. What's
your drift?' 'Did you not encounter Thorn, running from the cottage?'
I persisted. 'I have encountered n