I will not copy the description that followed. The reader could learn from it nothing except that at that time I rejoiced in dark-blond, curly hair ("sorrel-top" the boys used to call me when they wanted to tease me), stood six feet without my shoes, and, as a well-finished specimen of humanity, had no special marks, or at least none in the eyes of Herr Justizrath Heckepfennig. But in truth, at this moment so critical for me, I scarcely noticed the description of my person; the Notice occupied all my thoughts. When, the evening before, the shepherd said that the man whom the patrol were after was charged with murder, I did not believe it for a moment. He was such a simple-looking fellow, that I thought the patrol had been telling him a frightful story to scare him, or to enhance their own importance. But here it stood in large clear letters in the _Weekly News_, which, as but few other papers had ever fallen into my hands, was always to my uncritical youthful mind invested with a certain magisterial authority--I might almost say, bore the stamp of infallibility. "Suspected of murder!" Was it possible? Was I then looked upon as the murderer of Jock Swart? I, who had thanked God when I saw the man at whom I had fired, limping briskly off? I, whose only consolation in these last days of suffering, was that at the worst no man's death weighed upon my conscience? And here it was proclaimed to all the world that I was a murderer! The bar-maid brought the refreshment I had ordered, and I think advised me to waste no time, as the ferry-boat would soon start. I scarcely heard what she said, but left my supper untouched, and sat staring at the paper, which I had hastily turned over as the girl entered, as if my printed name might betray me. But on the other side it again appeared in a paragraph headed _City Items_. The paragraph ran thus: