We had reached the stile. Old Westerbrook rested his arms upon the top of it instead of getting over, tapping the step on the other side with his thick walking-stick.
“Gisby’s opinion is that Fred threw himself into the first deep pond that lay in his way that night, and so put an end to his career for good,” said he. “My late wife thought so too.”
“Don’t you believe anything of the kind, sir,” said I, in hot impulse.
“It is what Gisby is always dinning into me, Johnny. I hate to hear him. With all Fred’s faults, he was not one to fly to that extremity, under——”
“I am quite sure he was not, sir. And did not.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, I was about to say,” went on the old gentleman, with apathy, as he put one foot on the stile. “But when a man has the crime of murder upon his soul, there’s no answering for what he may be tempted to do in his remorse and terror.”
“It was not murder at all, sir. Gisby is well again.”
“But it was thought to be murder at the time. Who would have given a brass button for Gisby’s life that night? Don’t quibble, Master Johnny.”
“Gisby was shot, sir; there’s no denying that, or that he might have died of it; but I am quite sure it was not Fred who shot him.”