“Are you taunting me, sir? Let me tell you your jesting is ill-timed. I would have known better, at least, than to have ordered away the skull without first examining it.”
“On my honour, sir,” said Tuke, much amused, “I am not a coroner nor even a J. P.”
“Oh! well,” muttered the soldier—“I am ready, gentlemen.”
As he was preparing to mount:
“Tuke,” said Sir David, “now I think on’t—wasn’t it that girl at the inn first gave you warning of Mr. Breeds and his gang?”
“Betty Pollack? Yes.”
He answered brusquely, and touched his horse with his heel.
“The women, it seems, give us the lead in this business.”
“Betty,” said Tuke, with a little fierce glow of emotion, “is gold to the inside of her heart. Now, gentlemen—and keep your eyes alert, by your favour, as we pass the ‘Dog and Duck.’”
A creaking, and pounding of the frozen snow, and the three were on their way once more. The long white stretches of road behind them returned to the sombreness of quiet that their human voices had interrupted. The very dun sky, that seemed to have withdrawn in high offence at their careless chatter, drooped down again, frowning and austere, to resume its ward of the imprisoned forces of life. No movement was in the stiff spurs of grass or in the petrified Hedgerows; no least cry of bird or insect in all the wastes of air.