Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/315

Rh you, that I was a spirit. You can feel my grip on your arm, that I am in the flesh and hearty. I set fire to the tumbled thatch. It does good to scare folks at times."

She drew Saltren into the wood. From a vantage point on the other side of the valley from that of the crag, themselves screened from sight, they could see a cluster of men about the dead body of Lord Lamerton, and Mrs. Saltren gesticulating behind them.

"I wonder," said Patience Kite, "whether that wife of yours be a fool or not? Your safety, I reckon, depends on her tongue. If she has sense, she will say she found the dead lord as she was going to fetch water. If she's a fool she'll let out about you. Did any one see you on the down?"

"I think Macduff went by some time before."

"Yes—I saw'n go along. That was some while afore."

Saltren said nothing. He was less concerned about his own safety than Mrs. Kite supposed. He was intently watching the men raise the dead body.

"It is a pity," pursued Mrs. Kite, "because if you hadn't been seen by Mr. Macduff, I might have sworn you a famous alibi, and made out you was helping me to move my furniture. Thomasine also, she'd ha' sworn anything in reason to do you a good turn. What a sad job it was that you didn't chuck over Macduff as well. But there—I won't blame you. We none of us, as the parson says, do all those things we ought to do, but leave undone what we ought. Thomasine and I'd swear against Mr. Macduff, but I doubt it would do no good, as Mrs. Macduff keeps a victoria and drives about in it, and we don't, so the judge would have respect to the witness of Macduff and disregard ours. And yet they say there is justice and righteousness in the world!—when our testimony would not be taken and Macduff's accepted, along of a victoria."

She caught Saltren's arm again, and led him further into