“For thee?” Mr. Barraclough was greatly surprised. “Nay, I doubt I was wise to mention my secret to thee.”
“Art coming?” John was striding resolutely homewards.
“Well, seeing I have mentioned it, I suppose there’s no partiklar harm in showing it. O’ course, tha’ canna’ use a gun?”
“Can’t I? No, you’re reight there. I’m not much of a man, am I? As tha’ told me, I’ve gotten no spunk, but I’ve spunk enough now. It weren’t more than not seeing clear and tha’s cleared things up for me wonnerful.”
“I have? How?”
“Tha’ can shoot, if I canna’, Barraclough.” Which was disappointing to the spy, who thought things were going better than this.
Still he could bide his time and “Aye, I can shoot,” he said. “I’ve been in militia.”
“Then tha’ can teach me,” said John, to Mr. Barraclough’s relief. “I’ll be a quick learner.”
“Well, as tha’s interested, I’ll show thee how a trigger’s pulled,” and Barraclough was, in fact, not intending to go further than that in musketry instruction. Hepplestall killed might, indeed, encourage the others, it might array the manufacturers solidly under Needham’s reactionary standard, but Barraclough read murder as going beyond his directions, and supposed that if Reuben were fired on and missed (as he would be by an amateur marksman), the demonstration of unrest at Hepplestall’s would have been satisfyingly made.
He was, therefore, sparing in his tutorship when they had come into his room and handled the gun together. “We munna call the whole neighborhood about our ears by the sound of a shot,” he said.