While he mused, Mr. Shanks was musing also, calculating results and combinations; but at length he said, in a low tone, "Is she gone?--Have you got that accomplished?" "Gone?--Yes.--Do you mean my mother?--Damn it, yes!--She is gone, to be sure.--Didn't you meet her?" "No," said Mr. Shanks; "I came the other way. That is lucky, however. But harkee, John--something very unpleasant has happened, and we must take some steps about it directly; for if they work him well, that fellow is likely to peach." "Who?--what the devil are you talking about?" asked John Ayliffe, with his passion still unsubdued. "Why, that blackguard whom you would employ--Master Tom Cutter," answered Mr. Shanks. "You know I always set my face against it, John; and now--" "Peach!" cried John Ayliffe, "Tom Cutter will no more peach than he'll fly in the air. He's not of the peaching sort." "Perhaps not, where a few months' imprisonment are concerned," answered Mr. Shanks; "but the matter here is his neck, and that makes a mighty difference, let me tell you. Now listen to me, John, and don't interrupt me till I've done; for be sure that we have got into a very unpleasant mess, which we may have some difficulty in getting out of. You sent over Tom Cutter, to see if he could not persuade young Scantling, Lord Selby's gamekeeper, to remember something about the marriage, when he was with his old father the sexton. Now, how he and Tom manage their matters, I don't know; but Tom gave him a lick on the head with a stick, which killed him on the spot. As the devil would have it, all this was seen by two people, a laborer working in a ditch hard by, and Scantling's son, a boy of ten years old. The end of it is, Tom was instantly pursued, and apprehended; your good uncle, Sir John, was called to take the depositions, and without any remand whatever, committed our good friend for trial. Tom's only chance is to prove that it was a case of chance-medley, or to bring it under manslaughter, as a thing done in a passion, and if he thinks that being employed by you will be any defence, or will show that it was a sudden burst of rage, without premeditation, he will tell the whole story as soon as he would eat his dinner." "I'll go over to him directly, and tell him to hold his tongue," cried John Ayliffe, now fully awakened to the perils of the case.