ectly silent, as one struck with some sudden
dread, he bade the old man hold up his head and fear nothing. Old
Brattle, when so addressed, seated himself in his arm-chair, and
there remained without a word till the magistrate with the constables
were among them.

There were not many at church, and Mr. Fenwick made the service very
short. He could not preach the sermon which he had prepared, but said
a few words on the terrible catastrophe which had occurred so near
to them. This man who was now lying within only a few yards of them,
with his brains knocked out, had been alive among them, strong and
in good health, yesterday evening! And there had come into their
peaceful village miscreants who had been led on from self-indulgence
to idleness, and from idleness to theft, and from theft to murder! We
all know the kind of words which the parson spoke, and the thrill of
attention with which they would be heard. Here was a man who had been
close to them, and therefore the murder came home to them all, and
filled them with an excitement which, alas! was not probably without
some feeling of pleasure. But the sermon, if sermon it could be
called, was very short; and when it was over, the parson also hurried
down to the mill.

It had already been discovered that Sam Brattle had certainly been
out during the night. He had himself denied this at first, saying,
that though he had been the last to go to bed, he had gone to bed
about eleven, and had not left the mill-house till late in the
morning;--but his sister had heard him rise, and had seen his body
through the gloom as he passed beneath the window of the room in
which she slept. She had not heard him return, but, when she arose at
six, had found out that he was then in the house. He manifested no
anger against her when she gave this testimony, but acknowledged that
he had been out, that he had wandered up to the road, and explained
his former denial frankly,--or with well-assumed frankness,--by
saying that he would, if possible, for his father's and mother's
sake, have concealed the fact that he had been away,--knowing that
his absence would give rise to suspicions which would well-nigh break
their hearts. He had not, however,--so he said,--been any nearer
to Bullhampton than the point of the road opposite to the lodge of
Hampton Privets, from whence the lane turned down to the mill. What
had he been doing down there? He had done nothing, but sat and smoked
on a stile by th