Ill news flies fast. The intelligence of the verdict had spread in the hamlet, and its immediate effect was exaggerated by the villagers. The coming departure of their young master and mistress also travelled from the castle to the green, and added to the excitement. Groups collected both of sorrowing women and of threatening men. The lapse of time only increased the numbers and the exasperation of the tenantry. The people speedily forgot all those rumours concerning their late lord's marriage, which of old gratified their envy, and which had probably contributed in no small degree to the result of the trial. They only considered the event of the day; that the last representative of the family with which they had been connected for centuries was now to be driven from his home, by a deserter who had sold himself to a rival house; and many among them resolved, that if they could prevent it, by right or wrong, it should not be so that "Pendar'l and Trevethlan should own one name." "And so ye were right after all, dame," said farmer Colan to the landlady of the Trevethlan Arms. "The old saying's come true with a vengeance. But there's no Miss Mildred in the case." "And Madam Pendarrel's not come to Trevethlan yet, farmer," was the answer. "And there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." "There's like to be a slip here," cried a voice in the crowd, "such as she little knows." "It's a curious sort of day for the season," said Breage. "So warm and heavy. I should say there was some prognostication in the air." "Ay, there'll be a storm before long, I reckon, neighbours," said Germoe. "Faith, then, there will," muttered another speaker; "and a storm some people don't expect." "There always is a storm," observed the general merchant, "along with misfortune at the castle. It comes as a token." "Then it comes too late," quoth Mrs. Miniver. "It is after the misfortune this time. Who knows what came of Michael Sinson?" A low groan ran through the throng, and filled the eyes of Mercy Page with tears. "What'll his old grandame say," asked farmer Colan, "when she understands the rights of the matter?" "She never will understand," answered the hostess. "She'll close her ears, and say it is all along of squire Randolph. Don't ye mind how she met him at the late master's burying? And how she says that her Margaret was murdered?" "'T is a strange thing," remarked the village tailor, "that nothing ever turned up about the parson's murder." "He never was murdered," said Breage; "if he had, there'd have been a sign. I don't believe as he was murdered."