“It’s like that beggarly schoolmaster’s impudence to come poking his snout here, where he’s not wanted, where”’with some energy’“I won’t have him! I’ll have the law of him for trespass!” “He did not trespass. It is free to anyone to approach a house door.” “I don’t care; I’ll shoot him if he shows his face here again.” “You are branching away from the matter in immediate consideration. There seems to be a conflict of testimony. Kitty, whom I have always found true and direct as a needle, has made one statement,’not indeed to me, but to others,’and this you contradict.” “I’m churchwarden’I’m a man of means and in a good business. I should think my word was worth more than that of a sly, chattering, idle minx.” “Sly, chattering, that my little Kitty is not; I have ever found her straightforward and reserved. As to her work in the house, her aunt is better qualified to express an opinion than you, Mr. Pepperill.” “I don’t see that you’ve any call to come here, poking into matters and axin’ questions like another Kitty, if I may make so bold as to say so,” said Pasco, defiant and then qualifying his defiance. “As I told you at the outset, Mr. Pepperill, I have come here not to make an official inquiry, but to prevent one. There is a mistake somewhere. My wish was to clear it up before matters grew to a head. You and Mr. Pooke are both stubborn men, and may knock heads and crack skulls over nothing. A word will probably lighten what is now dark, and dissipate a growing mistrust. I cannot, and I will not, believe half of what is being said relative to you. I have come to your house as a peacemaker, to entreat you to so account for little matters which puzzle the good people here, before what is now whispered may be brayed, what is now a conjecture may be crystallised into a conviction. As far as is known, the matter stands thus: Mr. Quarm came here, and here have been found his donkey and cart and his little bundle of clothes. If he had crossed the water, he would have taken the latter with him. Two persons were heard in altercation here shortly after his having passed through Coombe, and the door was shut violently. Next morning the door was locked, and Mrs. Pepperill when she came found the key in a hiding-place known, as she then said, only to herself and you.” “Don’t you suppose Kitty knew it also?” “I daresay she did. Your wife’s words, when she arrived, found the stores burnt, and the house locked, and the key in a certain place’her words were, ‘Pasco has put the key where I have found it.’ It was of course surmised that before you left you had locked the door, but Kitty told young Pooke that when you reached the top of the hill you returned to the Cellars, saying that you had forgotten to lock the house. It, therefore, seemed to me probable that on your return, you and Quarm came to high words about something.” “Nothing of the sort I never came back.” “Oh, uncle!” escaped Kate’s lips.