"Oh! I've heard that myself," chimed in another. "And I did hear that they'd had a regular fight and Jake got the best of it."
"It's awful that two old men like them, on the edge of the grave, as you may say, and brothers at that, should quarrel about money."
"And one for to go and kill the other."
At this point the Squire, who had overheard much of the preceding conversation, interposed: "How do you know," he demanded abruptly, turning on the last speaker, "who killed him?"
"Well, I dunno exactly, of course," whined the fellow, hesitatingly, "but it looks mighty like it."
"Ah! And that pimpled nose of yours, Rufe Stevens, looks mightily like you were a hard drinker; but you are ready to take your Bible oath it's nothing but bad humors in your blood."
There were a few suppressed chuckles at the Squire's retort from those in the vicinity—for men will laugh even at the smallest things, and in the very presence of the King of Terrors—and Rufe moved away, muttering indistinctly. But the Squire's interference and well-intended reproof had only a momentary effect in diverting the attention of the neighbors from the evil bent of suspicion their minds had taken; and they continued exchanging, and possibly augmenting, the rumors they had heard of differences between the Van Deust brothers, until the sentiment was general among them that Peter Van Deust should be at once arrested for the murder of his brother.
II.
ON INFORMATION AND BELIEF.
That the reader may be properly informed of certain antecedent events which, as will hereafter be seen, were intimately connected with, and indeed leading directly to the murder of Jacob Van Deust, it will be necessary for us to make a brief retrogression in our narrative and to introduce various other members of that little seaside community who bore their several important parts in the eventful drama of real life here in progress of recital.
Near the close of a day in earliest spring, when the sun, that had not yet sufficient power to melt the lingering patches of snow that still laid here and there among the thickets and on northern slopes, was throwing its last red rays upon the lowering, leaden-tinted masses of the western sky, two young girls wandered, with their arms about each other's waists, in the shadows of the woods not far distant from the village of Easthampton. One of them, somewhat above the medium height of women, possessed a slender and graceful figure, and a face that, seen under the large, crimson-lined hood of the cloak with which her head was covered, appeared almost pure Grecian in its regularity of feature and delicacy of outline. Her complexion was pale, but the clear roseate flush of her cheeks, and the brilliancy of youth and health sparkling in her eyes, demonstrated sufficiently that that pallidity was simply the added charm with which kindly nature at times enhances the loveliness of the most beautiful brunettes. The sentiment expressed by her countenance was serious and earnest, but not sad, for a faint smile, like the blossoming of some sweet hope, rested upon her small red lips. Her companion, who seemed to be of about the same age—not more than eighteen or nineteen years—was of a different mould; possibly less beautiful, but hardly less bewitching. She was somewhat shorter of stature and rounder of form, with a face in which vivacity and determination were happily blended. Her laughing lips were red and full, a merry mischievous light danced in her blue eyes, and her hood thrown back upon her neck, left bare a round head covered with a wavy wealth of brown hair.