We did put him down on the floor—there was no other place—with his head on my lap, and I found strange voices asking him what Perrault had done to him. "Oh! nothing! 'twasn't that. Yes, he's gone, out by the window."
He swallowed some wine and then sat up, leaning against me as I sat at the bottom of the stairs, quite himself again, and assuring us that he was not hurt; Perrault never touched him—"Threatened you, then," said Fulk.
"No," said Alured, as if he hadn't spirit to be indignant; "I meant him to get off."
"Lord Trevorsham!" cried a voice in great displeasure, and I saw that Mr. Halsted, the nearest magistrate, was standing over us.
"He told me—Trevor did"—said Alured.
"Told you to assist the murderer to escape!" exclaimed Mr. Halsted.
Alured let his head fall back, and would not answer, and Fulk said, "There is no need for him to speak at present, is there? The constable and the rest are gone after Perrault, but I do not yet know what has directed the suspicion against him."
And then at the stair foot, for there was no other place to go to, we came to an understanding, the two gentlemen and Brand the keeper standing, and I seated on the step with my boy lying against me. I could not trust him out of my sight, nor, indeed, was he fit to be left.
It seems that Brand had been uneasy about the number of shooters whom the report of the swans had attracted; and though the bank of the river was not Trevorsham ground, he had kept along on the border of the covers higher up the hill, to guard his hares and pheasants.
Thus he had seen everything distinctly in the moonlight against the snowy bank below; and he had observed one figure in particular, moving stealthily along, in a parallel line with that which he knew our party would take, though they were in shadow, and he could not see them.