Every shepherd on the high fells became a
detective, speeding news, or urging suggestions, by the old freemasonry
of their tribe; while every farmhouse in certain dales, within reach of
the scene of the murder, sent out its watchers by day and night, eagerly
contributing its men and its wits to the chase.
For in this chase there was a hidden motive which found no expression
in the local papers; of which men spoke to each other under their
breaths, when they spoke at all; but which none the less became in a
very short time, by the lightning spread of a few evil reports, through
the stubble of popular resentment, the animating passion at the heart of
it. The police and Faversham's few friends were searching for the
murderer of Melrose; the public in general were soon hunting Faversham's
accomplice. The discovery of Will Brand meant, in the one case, the
arrest of a poor crazy fellow who had avenged by murder his father's
persecution and ruin; in the other case, it meant the unmasking of an
educated and smooth-spoken villain, who, finding a vast fortune in
danger, had taken ingenious means to secure it. In this black suspicion
there spoke the accumulated hatred of years, stored up originally, in the
mind of a whole countryside, against a man who had flouted every law of
good citizenship, and strained every legal right of property to breaking
point; and discharging itself now, with pent-up force, upon the tyrant's
tool, conceived as the murderous plotter for his millions.
Pages:
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463