"What is it?"
"Never mind what it is, woman! Answer my question--who gave it you?"
"It's no use your speaking to me like that, Mr Nunn, and so I'd have you know. I'm no servant of yours! Some child slipped it into my hand, but what with the bad light and the flurry I was in because of what you'd been saying, I didn't notice what child no more than nothing at all."
Mr Nunn seemed disturbed.
"It'll be a serious thing for you, Mrs Granger, if you're not able to recognise who gave you this. You say it was a child? There can't be so many children in the place. I'll find out which of them it was if I have to interview every one in the parish. It can't have got so far away; perhaps it's still waiting outside."
As he moved towards the entrance, with a view of finding out if the bearer of that singular communication was still loitering in the immediate neighbourhood, he became conscious that someone was approaching from without--more than one. While he already had the handle in his grasp it was turned with a certain degree of violence by someone on the other side; the door was thrown open, and he found himself confronted by what, in the gathering darkness, seemed quite a crowd of persons.
"Is William Granger in?" demanded a feminine voice in not the most placable of tones. Mr Nunn replied,--
"Mr Granger is in. Who are you, and what do you want with him?"
"I'm his sister, Elizabeth Wilson, that's who I am, and I should like to know who you are to ask me such a thing. And as for what I want, I want justice; me and my daughter, Sarah Ann, we both want justice--and I'm going to see I get it too. My own cousin, Jim Baker, he's in prison this moment for what he never did, and I'm going to see that he's let out of prison double quick and the party as ought to be in prison put there. So you stand out of the way and let me get inside this house to see my brother."
Mr Nunn did as he was requested, and Mrs Wilson entered, accompanied by her daughter, Sarah Ann. He looked at the assemblage without.