"Not exactly so," answered Manners: "the wound of the one was much more severe than that of the other, and the surgeon staid where his presence was most necessary. I went down, however, and sat with the poor fellow some time; and he distinctly informed me, not only that you had not been present when the deer were killed, but that you were coming up and calling to the others not to fire at the moment that the guns went off. He said, too, that if it had not been for your interference, there would have been far more bloodshed; and I strongly advise you, should there ever be any investigation of this business, to call the keeper Jones as a witness to establish your innocence."
"While I can keep my liberty," said the gipsy, "they shall never hold me in their gripe. Besides, he would find witnesses enough to swear away my life, if he were to bribe them with half his fortune. But the wounded men--are they likely to die, did you say?"
"I trust not," answered Manners; "and with care and attention, the wound of the keeper will not prove even dangerous. The other gentleman I did not see, but I hear he is much more severely hurt."
"What is his name?" demanded the gipsy.
"Sir Roger Millington, I think, was the name," answered Manners; "but I did not pay it any particular attention."
"Sir Roger Millington!" repeated the gipsy, musing--"Sir Roger Millington! I do not know him; and yet it sounds in my ears like a word spoken in a dream. Oh yes, yes--I remember now: it was to him that the money was owing."
"What money?" demanded Manners, in some surprise.
"Never mind," answered the gipsy; "but, be sure, if that man dies, my enemy will find means to make me out his murderer. Mark that, gentleman, and remember hereafter."
"It is impossible that he can do so," answered Manners, whose confidence in British justice was much stronger than that of the gipsy. "I understand that there were eight or nine people present. One of them, who has suffered severely, has already borne witness to your innocence; and, depend upon it, that among the rest, you would find plenty more to do the same. But it strikes me as extraordinary, I do confess, that you should seem to apprehend much more evil from an affair in which you can easily exculpate yourself, than from a charge which, referring to matters long gone, and to circumstances of which there could be but few witnesses, must be much more difficult to be met in a satisfactory manner--I mean the charge of having killed the late Lord Dewry."
"I will tell you why, I will tell you why," answered the gipsy. "In regard to this business, he can prove something against me: that I was in his park without right--at a suspicious hour--when persons were committing an unlawful act; and those people my own nation, and my own comrades. He may make out a plausible tale, and a little false swearing would easily do the rest. But in regard to the other, I laugh him to scorn; for why? because, when I will, I can blow the cloud away, like the west wind when it sweeps the mist from the valleys--because I can dispel it all, and prove my own innocence beyond a doubt, by proving who it was that did do the deed!"