Captain Mulgrave laughed a little, and both men stood silent considering.
“I can’t think who can have had such a grudge against the poor devil as to shoot him,” he said at last, as if to himself. “It must have been some one on foot, for there are no hoof-marks about but those of the horse he was riding.”
Barnabas said nothing. With one steady look at Captain Mulgrave as if to tell him that he hadn’t done with him yet, the farmer examined the footprints in the snow round about. There were marks neither of wheels nor of hoofs further than this point, but there were footprints both of men and children, for this was the high road between Presterby and Eastborough, the next important town southwards along the coast.
“Aye,” said the farmer, when he had finished his inspection, “it mun ha’ been some one afoot, Capt’n, as you say.”
Captain Mulgrave had been considering the aspect of the affair, and he looked more serious when Barnabas uttered these words.
“Barnabas,” he said at last, “I begin to see that these devils, with their confirmed prejudice against me, may make this a serious business.”
“Aye, so Ah’m thinking too.”
“Give a dog a bad name, you know. Because I shot down four rascals in self-defence, I’m considered capable of depopulating the county in cold blood.”
“Aye, that be so. Leastweays we knaw ye doan’t hawd human loife seacred.”
“Well, and that’s true enough,—I don’t. There are men whom I should consider it justifiable to exterminate like vermin.”