He had
been searched rapidly just now, in an outer passage, by a couple of men,
one of whom he understood to be his gaoler; and a knife and a chain and
his rosary had been taken from him. But the purse had been put back
again.... He remembered presently that the possession of money made a
considerable difference to a prisoner's comfort; but he determined to do
as little as he was obliged in this way. He might need the money more
urgently by and by.
* * * * *
By the time that he had gone carefully round his prison-walls, even
reaching up to the window and testing the bars, pushing as noiselessly
as he could against the door, pacing the distances in every
direction--he had, at the same time, once more arranged and rehearsed
every piece of evidence that he possessed, and formed a number of
resolutions.
He was perfectly clear by now that his father had been wholly ignorant
of the identity of the man he was after. The horror in the gasping face
that he had seen so close to his own, above the strangling arm, set that
beyond a doubt; the news of the fit into which his father had fallen
confirmed it.
Next, he had been right in believing himself watched in the shepherd's
hut, and followed down from it. This hiding of his in the hills, the
discovery of him in the hiding-hole, together with the vestments--these
two things were the heaviest pieces of testimony against him. More
remote testimony might be brought forward from his earlier
adventures--his presence at Fotheringay, his recognition by my lord's
man.
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