They
say that shepherds who have lost sheep constantly go to him for help!"
"--You know him?"
"I have talked to him sometimes. A queer sulky fellow with one or two
fixed ideas. He certainly hated Melrose. Whether he hated him enough to
murder him is another question. When I visited them, the mother told me
that Will had rushed out of the house the night before, because he could
not endure the sight of his father's sufferings. The jury I suppose will
have to know that. Well!--You were going on to Pengarth?"
Tatham assented. Boden paused, leaning on his bicycle.
"Take Threlfall on your way. I think Faversham would like to see you.
There are some strange things being said. Preposterous things! The hatred
is extraordinary."
The two men eyed each other gravely. Boden added:
"I have been telling your mother that I think I shall go over to
Threlfall for a bit, if Faversham will have me."
Tatham wondered again. Faversham, prosperous, had been, it seemed to him,
a special target for Boden's scorn, expressed with a fine range of
revolutionary epithet.
But calamity of any kind--for this queer saint--was apt to change all the
values of things.
They were just separating when Tatham, with sudden compunction, asked for
news of Mrs. Melrose, and Felicia.
"I had almost forgotten them!"
"Your mother did not tell me much. They were troubled about Mrs. Melrose,
I think, and Undershaw was coming. The poor little girl turned very
white--no tears--but she was clinging to your mother.
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