"You'll not call in any one to shut me up, and I'll tell ye," said Timothy. "I'll be glad to get rid of 'em; but you'll not shut me up! The stones wur burning through my cap into my brain; I see 'em all on fire now—there! blazin' away. Ye must see 'em. Look inside the cap there in the corner, where it's standin' again."
The preacher glanced at Timothy's cloth cap, an ordinary enough article, such as nearly all the L——shire men of that part wore, himself included. He picked it up and shook it. Needless to say, no burning stones fell out. Possibly the whole story was a delusion, but he could not look on at this agony of terror any longer.
"Tell me what ye ha' done, an' ease your mind," he said.
"Ye'll not let me hang: ye'll not tell!" said Timothy. "Swear ye'll not."
"There's no need," said the preacher, "for me to swear, who've never betrayed any man, nor never could. I'll not betray ye."
"It wur the back o' his skull," said Timothy, in an eager whisper; "just here," putting his hand up to indicate the place. "He didn't bleed much, but went down straight; an' I turned him over an' tuk 'em out o' his pocket. I'd think it wur a dream, only he's followed me ever since. That's becos they've not buried him. Ye'll find him two stones' throw from the Pixies' Pond, lyin' very white an' quiet as if there weren't no more mischief in him; but there be; he b'ain't one to forget, an' he's tryin' to drag me to hell. He's makin' signs now. Barnabas, Barnabas, he's——"
"How long ago did ye kill him?" said the preacher.
"Eh? how long? I should think it must ha' been a matter o' ninety-nine years or maybe a hundred. Quite a hundred takin' it all round; what with the time I was hidin' in the marshes, with him allus creepin' round and peepin' behind bushes at me—tho' all the time pretendin' to lie quite stiff, for I kep' goin' back to see—an' the time I was gettin' to town, where they came hollerin' arter me an' said as I was mad. They allus say that, if one speaks the truth."
"So they do," said Barnabas. "So ye knocked a man down in the Caulderwell marsh and robbed him, and ran away and came to London, eh?"
"That's it!" cried Timothy. He leaned forward and caught the preacher's coat, holding him as a drowning man might clutch at an arm stretched out to save.