“Mornin’, sir,” he said. “Mornin’, miss. I hope I see you well. Beg your pardon, sir, but you be a Campaigne for sure. All the Campaignes are alike--tall men they are, and good to look upon. But you’re not so tall, nor yet so strong built, as the Squire. Been to see the old gentleman, sir? Ay, he do last on, he do. It’s wonderful. Close on ninety-five he is. Everybody in the village knows his birthday. Why, he’s a show. On Sundays, in summer, after church, they go to the garden wall and look over it, to see him marching up and down the terrace. He never sees them, nor wouldn’t if they were to walk beside him.” “You all know him, then?” “I mind him seventy years ago. I was a little chap then. You wouldn’t think I was ever a little chap, would you? Seventy years ago I was eight--I’m seventy-eight now. You wouldn’t think I was seventy-eight, would you?” A very garrulous old man, this. “I gave evidence, I did, at the inquest after the murder. They couldn’t do nohow without me, though I was but eight years old.” “You? Why, what had you to do with the murder?” “I was scaring birds on the hillside above the wood. I see the Squire--he was a fine big figure of a man--and the other gentleman crossing the road and coming over the stile into the field. Then they went as far as the wood together. The Squire he turned back, but the other gentleman he went on. They found him afterwards in the wood with his head smashed. Then I see John Dunning go in--same man as they charged with the murder. And he came running out--scared-like with what he’d seen. Oh! I see it all, and I told them so, kissing the Bible on it.” “I have heard that a man was tried for the crime.” “He was tried, but he got off. Everybody knows he never done it. But they never found out who done it.” “That is all you know about it?” “That is all, sir. Many a hundred times I’ve told that story. Thank you, sir. Mornin’, miss. You’ll have a handsome partner, miss, and he’ll have a proper missus.” “So,” said Leonard, as they walked away, “the murder is still remembered, and will be, I suppose, so long as anyone lives who can talk about it. It is strange, is it not, that all these discoveries should fall together; that I should learn the truth about my own people, and only a day or two afterwards that you should learn the truth about your own ancestors? We are cousins, Constance, and a common tragedy unites us.” They mounted their wheels and rode away in silence. But the joy had gone out of the day. The evening fell. The wind in the trees became a dirge; their hearts were full of violence and blood and death; in their ears rang the cries of a bereaved woman, and the groans of a man gone mad with trouble. CHAPTER IX MARY ANNE