Harkutt had begun to feel the prudence of present reticence. "Well," he
said, cautiously, "YOU saw how he looked."
"You wasn't rough with him?--that might have sent him off, you know,"
said Peters.
"No," said Harkutt, forgetting himself in a quick indignation, "no,
I not only treated him to another drink, but gave him"--he stopped
suddenly and awkwardly.
"Eh?" said Peters.
"Some good advice,--you know," said Harkutt, hastily. "But come, you'd
better hurry over to the squire's. You know YOU'VE made the discovery;
YOUR evidence is important, and there's a law that obliges you to give
information at once."
The excitement of discovery and the triumph over his disputants being
spent, Peters, after the Sidon fashion, evidently did not relish
activity as a duty. "You know," he said dubiously, "he mightn't be dead,
after all."
Harkutt became a trifle distant. "You know your own opinion of the
thing," he replied after a pause. "You've circumstantial evidence
enough to see the squire, and set others to work on it; and," he added
significantly, "you've done your share then, and can wipe your hands of
it, eh?"
"That's so," said Peters, eagerly. "I'll just run over to the squire."
"And on account of the women folks, you know, and the strangers here,
I'll say nothin' about it to-night," added Harkutt.
Peters nodded his head, and taking up the hat of the unfortunate Elijah
with a certain hesitation, as if he feared it had already lost its
dramatic intensity as a witness, disappeared into the storm and darkness
again.
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