Sevenoaks and its whole vicinity presented a strange aspect that afternoon.  There had slept in the hearts of the people a pleasant and sympathetic memory of Mr. Benedict.  They had seen him struggling, dreaming, hopeful, yet always disappointed, dropping lower and lower into poverty, and, at last, under accumulated trials, deprived of his reason.  They knew but little of his relations to Mr. Belcher, but they had a strong suspicion that he had been badly treated by the proprietor, and that it had been in the power of the latter to save him from wreck.  So, when it became known that he had escaped with his boy from the poor-house, and that both had been exposed to the storm of the previous night, they all—­men and boys—­covered the fields, and filled the woods for miles around, in a search so minute that hardly a rod of cover was left unexplored.

It was a strange excitement which stirred the women at home, as well as the men afield.  Nothing was thought of but the fugitives and the pursuit.

Robert Belcher, in the character of principal citizen, was riding back and forth behind his gray trotters, and stimulating the search in every quarter.  Poor Miss Butterworth sat at her window, making indiscriminate inquiries of every passenger, or going about from house to house, working off her nervous anxiety in meaningless activities.

As the various squads became tired by their long and unsuccessful search, they went to the poor-house to report, and, before sunset, the hill was covered by hundreds of weary and excited men.  Some were sure they had discovered traces of the fugitives.  Others expressed the conviction that they had thrown themselves into a well.  One man, who did not love Mr. Belcher, and had heard the stories of his ill-treatment of Benedict, breathed the suspicion that both he and his boy had been foully dealt with by one who had an interest in getting them out of the way.

It was a marvel to see how quickly this suspicion took wing.  It seemed to be the most rational theory of the event.  It went from mouth to mouth and ear to ear, as the wind breathes among the leaves of a forest; but there were reasons in every man’s mind, or instincts in his nature, that withheld the word “murder” from the ear of Mr. Belcher.  As soon as the suspicion became general, the aspect of every incident of the flight changed.  Then they saw, apparently for the first time, that a man weakened by disease and long confinement, and never muscular at his best, could not have forced the inner door of Benedict’s cell.  Then they connected Mr. Belcher’s behavior during the day with the affair, and, though they said nothing at the time, they thought of his ostentatious anxiety, his evident perturbation when Mr. Buffum announced to him the escape, his offer of the reward for Benedict’s discovery, and his excited personal appearance among them.  He acted like a guilty man—­a man who was trying to blind them, and divert suspicion from himself.