“It was as far to the north that I left him.  I’m sure of it.  I was sobered by what happened.  I could swear it in heaven, Ralph.  It was full fifty yards on the down side of the bridge from the smithy.”

“Think again, my lad; it’s a serious thing that you say.”

“I’ve thought of it too much.  It has tormented me day and night.  There’s no use in trying to persuade myself I must be wrong.  Fifty yards on the down side of the beck from the smithy—­that was the place, Ralph.”

The dalesman looked grave.  Then a light crossed his face as if a wave of hope had passed through him.  Sim had said he was leaning against the bridge.  All that Angus could have done must have been done to the north of it.  Was it possible, after all, that Angus had not killed Wilson by that fall?

“You say that for the moment, when you touched him, you thought Wilson was not dead?”

“It’s true, I thought so.”

Sim had thought the same.

“Did you see any one else that night?”

“No.”

“Nor hear other footsteps?”

“No, none but my own at last—­none.”

It was no clew.  Unconsciously Ralph put his hand to his breast and touched the paper that he had placed there.  No, there was no hope.  The shadow that had fallen had fallen forever.

“Perhaps the man recovered enough to walk a hundred yards, and then fell dead.  Perhaps he had struggled to reach home?”

“He would be going the wrong way for that, Ralph.”

“True, true; it’s very strange, very, if it is as you say.  He was fifty yards beyond the smithy—­north of it?”

“He was.”

The dalesmen walked on.  They had got down into the road, when the little schoolmaster ran up against them almost before he had been seen.

“Oh, here you are, are you?” he gasped.

“Are they coming?” said Robbie Anderson, jumping on to the turf hedge to get a wider view.

“That they are.”

The little man had dropped down on to a stone, and was mopping his forehead.  When he had recovered his breath, he said,—­

“I say, Monsieur the Gladiator, why didn’t you kill when you were about it?  I say, why didn’t you kill?” and Monsey held his thumbs down, as he looked in Ralph’s face.

“Kill whom?” said Ralph.  He could not help laughing at the schoolmaster’s ludicrous figure and gesture.

“Why, that Garth—­a bad garth—­a kirk-garth—­a kirk-warner’s garth-a devil’s garth—­Joe Garth?”

“I can’t see them,” said Robbie, and he jumped down again into the road.

“Oh, but you will, you will,” said Monsey; and stretching his arm out towards Ralph with a frantic gesture, he cried, “You fly, fly, fly, fly!”

“Allow me to point out to you,” observed Ralph, smiling, “that I do not at all fly, nor shall I know why I should not remain where I am until you tell me.”

“Then know that your life’s not worth a pin’s fee if you remain here to be taken.  Oh, that Garth—­that devil’s garth—­that—­that—­Joe Garth!”