“It is of no use, sir,” said Buller. “I was quite alone, just as I told you, and no one knew I was out. I did not think of it myself till a few minutes before, when I found the bar loose. And I did not open my door even. And I saw no one, going or returning, till Mr Rabbits lit his chemical as I was getting in at the window.”
“It is very painful to—ah—to seem to doubt your word, in short,” said Lord Woodruff with hesitation, for he was a gentleman, and Tom’s manner struck him as remarkably open and straightforward. “But you know it is impossible to accept anyone’s unsupported evidence in his own favour, and I really wish that you could produce some one to corroborate your rather unlikely story. Assuming for a moment that you were in the company of poachers for a bit of fun last night, and that you saw something of this affray, and being caught as you got home, were frightened into accounting for your being out at so late an hour by this story of going skating in the moonlight; I say, assuming all this, I appeal to you to save yourself from serious consequences, and to forward the ends of justice by telling anything you know which may put us on the traces of the fellow who has injured my poor gamekeeper. A fellow who would come behind and strike a cowardly blow like that, trying to murder or maim a man who was simply doing his duty, does not deserve that you should shield him. Come, will you not denounce him?”
“But how can I tell about things of which I have no knowledge whatever?” cried Buller, who was getting vexed as well as bewildered. “What I have said is the exact truth, and if it does not suit you I cannot help it. Believe me or not, as you like, there is no good in my going on repeating my words.”
“I cannot accept the responsibility of taking your bare word in such a matter,” said Lord Woodruff, more stiffly, for Tom’s tone had offended him; “a magistrate may do so. Of course I shall not adjudicate in my own case,” he added, turning to Dr Jolliffe. “Mr Elliot is the next nearest magistrate, and I shall apply for a warrant against this youth to him.”
Tom Buller experienced a rather sudden change of sensation in a short period. A quarter of an hour ago he felt like a culprit, now his heart swelled with the indignation of a hero and a martyr. To be accused of poaching, and asked to betray a supposed accomplice in what might prove a murder, just because he happened to be out after ten one night, was rather too strong, and Tom’s back was up.
“You had better go to your room, Buller, and wait there till you hear further,” said Dr Jolliffe, not unkindly.
To tell the truth the doctor was a good deal ruffled by this accusation, brought, as it seemed to him, on very insufficient grounds, against some member of the school. But he was determined to be as cool and quiet about it as possible, and not to give any one a chance of saying that he had obstructed the ends of justice. For if he took the highly indignant line, and it were proved after all that one of his boys was involved in the scrape, how foolish he would look!
“And you really mean to have this boy up before Mr Elliot on a charge of poaching?” he asked.
“What else can I do?” said Lord Woodruff. “His own obstinacy in refusing to tell what he knows is to blame.”
“But supposing that he really knows nothing, how can he tell it? I know the boy well, and he is remarkably truthful and straightforward. Intensely interested, too, in the studies and sports of his school, and the very last to seek low company or get into a scrape of this kind.”