“Hope, did'ee zay, landlord? why, d'ye think there be any vear on't, then?”
“Excuse me, friend,” observed the supervisor; “I am a stranger to you; but, in my opinion, that is,—speaking candidly,—I'm sorry to say—remember I've no ill-will toward your son—nor, understand me, do I wish to bear on a bruised reed; but its folly to buoy a man up with false hopes;—the case is, if what I've heard be true, most decisive against the young man.”
“And what have'ee heard, old gentleman?—what have'ee heard, zir?”
“That, Saul,”—said the exciseman, “that, it is—needless to repeat;—but the shoe-marks,—Saul—”
“Well, and what o' them?” interrupted Braintree; “mightn't my zon ha' gone that way avore Govier were killed? or mightn't he ha' vound un dead, and come whoam straight, intending to tell the news az zoon az he axed I how a' should act?”
“True, Zaul, true,” replied Salter, who had not yet departed; “it do zeem ztrange that no vootsteps were vound in the snow 'proaching towards the zpot.”
“I can easily account for that, I think,” said the supervisor, with a smile of self-complacency: “the snow—”
“But hark to this,” cried Saul, again interrupting the old man; “hark to this:—how be we to know, that they what zaid they vound the body wer'n't the criminals, eh?”
“Lord bless us and zave us, Zaul!” exclaimed the little tailor, starting up; “Bless us, Zaul! why, 'twere I, good now, what raised the hue and cry. I were coming vrom varmer Butt's, vive mile off, where I a' been dree days at work, making a coat; I'd a' started avore 'twere day, zo as to get to work about Jack Blake's new suit, what he's a going to be married in o' Zinday;—and zharp doings it will be to vinish it as'tis:—zo I took the path through the copse, because it zaves a mile, you do know; and anan, my little dog, rin into the hazels and back again in a minute, barking as iv he'd a' zeen a ghost I were a bit vrightened, you may judge, vor I'd a' got my zilver watch, and half-a-crown, (my dree days' wages,) wi' ten shillings bezides, what the varmer had paid me vor a pig he bought o' me last Zinday vort-night, when he comed over to church. Well, and anan, my little dog, rin into the copse again, and come back growling worse nor avore. Thirdly and lastly, I patted the back o' un, and away he rin again, and when he overtook me,—d'ye mind?—by the light'o the moon, I zeed there were blood upon the nose o' un!—Wi' that, I and the dog rin vit to break our necks, 'till we got whoam. Zo then I raised the hue and cry, and Phil's body were vound:—but I had no more hand in the death o' un than you, Zaul. I can handle a reap-hook, or a needle, wi' one here and there, but I never vired a gun off in my life—wish I may die if I did!”
“Well, well, Mudford,” said Braintree, advancing toward the tailor; “I didn't know 'twere thee; gi'e us thy hand;—there—we be vriends, bean't us?”