e road side. Had he seen any strangers? Here he
paused, but at last declared that he had seen none, but had heard
the sound of wheels and of a pony's feet upon the road. The vehicle,
whatever it was, must have passed on towards Bullhampton just before
he reached the road. Had he followed the vehicle? No;--he had thought
of doing so, but had not. Could he guess who was in the vehicle? By
this time many surmises had been made aloud as to Jack the Grinder
and his companion, and it had become generally known that the
parson had encountered two such men in his own garden some nights
previously. Sam, when he was pressed, said that the idea had come
into his mind that the vehicle was the Grinder's cart. He had no
knowledge, he said, that the man was coming to Bullhampton on that
night;--but the man had said in his hearing, that he would like to
strip the parson's peaches. He was asked also about Farmer Trumbull's
money. He declared that he had never heard that the farmer kept money
in the house. He did know that the farmer was accounted to be a very
saving man,--but that was all that he knew. He was as much surprised,
he said, as any of them at what had occurred. Had the men turned the
other way and robbed the parson he would have been less surprised. He
acknowledged that he had called the parson a turn-coat and a meddling
tell-tale, in the presence of these men.

All this ended of course in Sam's arrest. He had himself seen from
the first that it would be so, and had bade his mother take comfort
and hold up her head. "It won't be for long, mother. I ain't got any
of the money, and they can't bring it nigh me." He was taken away
to be locked up at Heytesbury that night, in order that he might be
brought before the bench of magistrates which would sit at that place
on Tuesday. Squire Gilmore for the present committed him.

The parson remained for some time with the old man and his wife after
Sam was gone, but he soon found that he could be of no service by
doing so. The miller himself would not speak, and Mrs. Brattle was
utterly prostrated by her husband's misery.

"I do not know what to say about it," said Mr. Fenwick to his wife
that night. "The suspicion is very strong; but I cannot say that
I have an opinion one way or the other." There was no sermon in
Bullhampton Church on that Sunday afternoon.

CHAPTER XIII.

CAPTAIN MARRABLE AND HIS FATHER.

Only that it is generally conceived that in such a history as