“No,” said John, “but if tha’ll lend me this, I’ll find a plaice for practicing up on moors.”
“Lend thee my gun! Nay, lad, tha’s asking summat. It wenna do to carry that about in daylight.”
“I’ll tak’ it to-neight, and bring un back to-morrow neight.”
“To-neight? Tha’ canna’ practice in the dark.”
“Maybe I’ll ha’ no need to practice. Maybe there’s justice and summat greater nor me to guide a bullet home. I can nobbut try and I’m bound to try to-neight—the neight o’ the day I buried her, the neight when I’m hot. I’m poor spirited and I know it, and I’m wrought up now. To-morrow I’ll be frit.”
Barraclough balanced the gun in his hands. “I had my own ideas o’ this,” he said—the idea in particular, he might have added, had this been an occasion for candor, that such precipitancy was contrary to the best interests of an informer. Before an event occurred, a sagacious spy should have prophesied it and here was this ardent boy in so desperate a hurry for action that Barraclough was like to be cheated of the opportunity of proving to Needham that he was dutifully accessory before the fact.
But, he reflected, he had not found Hepplestall’s a fertile earth for his seeds, and if he played pranks with this present opportunity, if he attempted delay with a boy like John, a temperamentalist now in the mood to murder, he might very well lose his only chance of justifying himself. Besides, he could yet figure as a prophet and at the same time establish a sound alibi for himself if immediately after handing the gun over to John, he set off to report to Needham. On the whole, he saw himself accomplishing the object of his mission satisfactorily enough.
“Who’s gotten the better right?” John was saying. “Thou that’s not had nobhut a month o’ the plaice, or me that buried a wife this day killed by Hepplestall?”
Barraclough bowed his head. He thought it politic to hide his face just then, and the motion had the seeming of a reverent assent. “I’ve no reply to that,” he said.
“Thy claim is strongest. Come when it’s dark, and tha’ shall have the gun.”