d-looking,
and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never
mistake as long as you lived."

"Why, souls--'twas the man in the chimney-corner!"

"Hey--what?" said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring
particulars from the shepherd in the background. "Haven't you got the
man after all?"

"Well, sir," said the constable, "he's the man we were in search of,
that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the
man we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you
understand my every-day way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!"

"A pretty kettle of fish altogether!" said the magistrate. "You had
better start for the other man at once."

The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in
the chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do.
"Sir," he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, "take no more
trouble about me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have
done nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early
this afternoon I left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to
Casterbridge jail to bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called
here to rest and ask the way. When I opened the door I saw before me
the very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the condemned cell
at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-corner; and jammed close
to him, so that he could not have got out if he had tried, was the
executioner who'd come to take his life, singing a song about it and
not knowing that it was his victim who was close by, joining in to
save appearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at me, and I
know he meant, 'Don't reveal what you see; my life depends on it.' I
was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and, not knowing what
I did, I turned and hurried away."

The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story
made a great impression on all around.

"And do you know where your brother is at the present time?" asked the
magistrate.

"I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door."

"I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since." said
the constable.

"Where does he think to fly to?--what is his occupation?"

"He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir."

"'A said 'a was a wheelwright--a wicked rogue," said the constable.

"The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt," said Shepherd
Fennel. "I thought his hands were palish for's t