"Why should Dick Darke have killed Charley Clancy?"
Even put in this familiar form it receives no reply. It is an enigma to
which no one present holds the key. For none know aught of a rivalry
having existed between the two men--much less a love-jealousy, than
which no motive more inciting to murder ever beat in human breast.
Darke's partiality for Colonel Armstrong's eldest daughter has been no
secret throughout the settlement. He himself, childishly, in his cups,
long since made all scandal-mongers acquainted with that. But Clancy,
of higher tone, if not more secretive habit, has kept his love-affair to
himself; influenced by the additional reason of its being clandestine.
Therefore, those, sitting up as company to his afflicted parent, have no
knowledge of the tender relations that existed between him and Helen
Armstrong, any more than of their being the cause of that disaster for
which the widow now weeps.
She herself alone knows of them; but, in the first moment of her
misfortune, completely prostrated by it, she has not yet communicated
aught of this to the sympathetic ears around her. It is a family
secret, too sacred for their sympathy; and, with some last lingering
pride of superior birth, she keeps it to herself. The time has not come
for disclosing it.
But it soon will--she knows that. All must needs be told. For, after
the first throes of the overwhelming calamity, in which her thoughts
alone dwelt on the slain son, they turned towards him suspected as the
slayer. In her case with something stronger than suspicion--indeed
almost belief, based on her foreknowledge of the circumstances; these
not only accounting for the crime, but pointing to the man who must have
committed it.
As she lies upon her couch, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and
sighs heaved from the very bottom of her breast--as she listens to the
kind voices vainly essaying to console her--she herself says not a word.
Her sorrow is too deep, too absorbing, to find expression in speech.
But in her thoughts are two men--before, her distracted fancy two
faces--one of a murdered man, the other his murderer--the first her own
son, the second that of Ephraim Darke.
Notwithstanding ignorance of all these circumstances, the thoughts of
her sympathising neighbours--those in council outside--dwell upon Dick
Darke; while his name is continuously upon their tongues. His
unaccountable conduct during the day--as also the strange behaviour of
the hound--is now called up, and commented upon.
Why should the dog have made such demonstration? Why bark at him above
all the others--selecting him out of the crowd--so resolutely and
angrily assailing him?
His own explanation, given at the time, appeared lame and
unsatisfactory.
It looks lamer now, as they sit smoking their pipes, more coolly and
closely considering it.
While they are thus occupied, the wicket-gate, in front of the cottage,
is heard turning upon its hinges, and two men are seen entering the
enclosure.
As these draw near to the porch, where a tallow dip dimly burns, its
light is reflected from the features of Simeon Woodley and Edward
Heywood.
The hunters are both well-known to all upon the ground; and welcomed, as
men likely to make a little less irksome that melancholy midnight watch.
If the new-comers cannot contribute cheerfulness, they may something
else, as predicted by the expression observed upon their faces, at
stepping into the porch. Their demeanour shows them possessed of some
knowledge pertinent to the subject under discussion, as also important.
Going close to the candle, and summoning the rest around, Woodley draws
from the ample pocket of his large, loose coat a bit of wood, bearing
resemblance to a pine-apple, or turnip roughly peeled.
Holding it to the light, he says: "Come hyar, fellurs! fix yar eyes on
this."
All do as desired.
"Kin any o' ye tell what it air?" the hunter asks.
"A bit of tree timber, I take it," answers one.
"Looks like a chunk carved out of a cypress knee," adds a second.
"It ought," assents Sime, "since that's jest what it air; an' this child
air he who curved it out. Ye kin see thar's a hole in the skin-front;
which any greenhorn may tell's been made by a bullet: an' he'd be still
greener in the horn as kedn't obsarve a tinge o' red roun' thet hole,
the which air nothin' more nor less than blood. Now, boys! the bullet's
yit inside the wud, for me an' Heywood here tuk care not to extract it
till the proper time shed come."
"It's come now; let's hev it out!" exclaims Heywood; the others
endorsing the demand.
"Thet ye shall. Now, fellurs; take partikler notice o' what sort o'
_egg_ hez been hatchin' in this nest o' cypress knee."
While speaking, Sime draws his large-bladed knife from its sheath; and,
resting the piece of wood on the porch bench, splits it open. When
cleft, it discloses a thing of rounded form and metallic lustre, dull
leaden--a gun-bullet, as all expected.
There is not any blood upon it, this having been brushed off in its
passage through the fibrous texture of the wood. But it still preserves
its spherical shape, perfect as when it issued from the barrel of the
gun that discharged, or the mould that made it.
Soon as seeing it they all cry out, "A bullet!" several adding, "The
ball of a smooth-bore."
Then one asks, suggestingly:
"Who is there in this neighbourhood that's got a shooting-iron of such
sort?"
The question is instantly answered by another, though not
satisfactorily.
"Plenty of smooth-bores about, though nobody as I knows of hunts with
them."