While this discourse was going on in the cottage, the town of Brigland was agitated to its very centre by a tragical event which had occurred at old Richard Smith’s cottage. Multitudes of idle people were running from place to place, full of dreadful news of a murder that had been committed in the course of the preceding night. Almost every one had a different story to tell; and the affair lost nothing of its horror and mystery by being transmitted from one to another. Mr. Denver, as in duty or in habit bound, brought the tidings to Mr. Martindale at the cottage. The story, as related by the good-humoured perpetual curate, spoke of poor old Richard Smith as having been murdered by the gipsies, and of his niece being carried away nobody knew where. Upon cross-examination, however, it was elicited that Mr. Denver had acquired his information by a very circuitous route; for he had heard Mrs. Price and Mrs. Flint both at once telling a different version of the same story to Mrs. Denver, who, while those two ladies were speaking narratively, noisily, and contradictorily, was herself also talking exclamatively and interrogatively. The ladies who communicated the event to Mrs. Denver had received their information also from compound sources, but both were satisfied that they had received their intelligence from the best authority; and in order to prove that they were both rightly informed, they both of them talked very loudly and very rapidly. Mr. Denver must have been a very clever man under such circumstances to have made out any story at all; and he was a very clever man in such matters, and very much experienced in carrying and collecting intelligence: indeed, the mode above stated was that in which he usually acquired his knowledge. Practice gives great facility. But it must be acknowledged, notwithstanding all Mr. Denver’s accuracy and dexterity, that there were in his narrative some errors. It was not true that Richard Smith had been murdered; and it was not true that his niece had been carried away by violence or otherwise. These were the only two errors in the whole account. Much more however was reported, which Mr. Denver did not relate; and that which he did not relate was the part to which was most especially applicable that pathos of look and exclamation with which he introduced his narrative. This part of the story unfortunately was not true; we say unfortunately, because it is really mortifying to the multitude when investigation and inquiry deprive them of the richest part of a most horrible story. It was not likely that Mr. Denver should mention this part of the report when he saw Mr. Philip; for it was to that gentleman that it referred.