stable was called into the room,
and soon told his story. He had gone up to Trotter's Buildings that
day after dinner, and was told that the bird had flown. She had gone
out that morning, and Mrs. Stiggs knew nothing of her departure. When
they examined the room in which she slept, they found that she had
taken what little money she possessed and her best clothes. She had
changed her frock and put on a pair of strong boots, and taken her
cloak with her. Mrs. Stiggs acknowledged that had she seen the girl
going forth thus provided, her suspicions would have been aroused;
but Carry had managed to leave the house without being observed. Then
the constable went on to say that Mrs. Stiggs had told him that she
had been sure that Carry would go. "I've been a waiting for it all
along," she had said; "but when there came the law rumpus atop of the
other, I knew as how she'd hop the twig." And now Carry Brattle had
hopped the twig, and no one knew whither she had gone. There was much
sorrow at the vicarage; for Mrs. Fenwick, though she had been obliged
to restrain her husband's impetuosity in the matter, had nevertheless
wished well for the poor girl;--and who could not believe aught of
her now but that she would return to misery and degradation? When the
constable was interrogated as to the need for her attendance on the
morrow, he declared that nothing could now be done towards finding
her and bringing her to Heytesbury in time for the magistrates'
session. He supposed there would be another remand, and that then
she, too, would be--wanted.

But there had been so many remands that on the Tuesday the
magistrates were determined to commit the men, and did commit two of
them. Against Sam there was no tittle of evidence, except as to that
fact that he had been seen with these men in Mr. Fenwick's garden;
and it was at once proposed to put him into the witness-box, instead
of proceeding against him as one of the murderers. As a witness he
was adjudged to have behaved badly; but the assumed independence of
his demeanour was probably the worst of his misbehaviour. He would
tell them nothing of the circumstances of the murder, except that
having previously become acquainted with the two men, Burrows and
Acorn, and having, as he thought, a spite against the Vicar at the
time, he had determined to make free with some of the vicarage fruit.
He had, he said, met the men in the village that afternoon, and
had no knowledge of their busines