Page:The Knife.pdf/34

148 seeing the gipsy wear. One fact went far to prove Rachel's innocence. Some months after, a girl, who was in service, and had come home for a few days to be present at her sister's wedding, mentioned that she had the very morning of the murder set off early for the town of A. . . . ., where she was to meet the waggon—that she had had her fortune told by the woman, and had hurried away on seeing the husband approaching from the hazel thicket, she having always feared and disliked him. This was between seven and eight o'clock, just the time when the murder must have been committed; for John Dodd, the carrier, was there about half-past eight, and the body was then warm with recent life. The belief in the innocence of the woman gave even a deeper horror to the moor: the shop went to ruins, the path was deserted, and even now, when the gallows-tree and the body have alike gone to decay, the tradition haunts the place fresh and fearful as ever. One trace remains of the little cottage-garden. In the midst of the bare or furze-covered moor are two or three stunted gooseberry bushes: it is years since they have borne fruit, or more than a few leaves on the grey and knotted boughs; but they are still pointed out as having grown in Mrs. Bird's garden.