The carter had been drinking whisky—­not much as yet, but enough to give him a greater command of words than he ordinarily possessed.  When he saw Trenholme among the band who were inquiring for him, he manifested distinct signs of terror, but not at his visitors; his ghastly glances were at door and window, and he drew nearer to the company for protection.  It was plainly what they had to tell, not what they had to demand, that excited him to trembling; the assembled neighbourhood seemed to strike him in the light of a safeguard.  When, however, he found the incomers were inclined to accuse him of trick or knavery, he spoke out bravely enough.

Old Cameron had died—­they knew old Cameron?

Yes, the men assented to this knowledge.

And after he had been dead two days and one night, Mr. Bates—­they knew
Mr. Bates?—­

Assent again.

—­Had put him in the coffin with his own hands and nailed down the lid. 
He was quite dead—­perfectly dead.

On hearing this the bold girl who had come with them shrieked again, and two of the younger men took her aside, and, holding her head over a bucket in the corner poured water on it, a process which silenced her.

“And,” said Turrif, quietly speaking in French, “what then?”

“What then?” said Saul; “Then to-day I brought him in the cart.”

“And buried him on the road, because he was heavy and useless, and let some friend of yours play with the box?” continued Turrif, with an insinuating smile.

Saul swore loudly that this was not the case, at which the men shrugged their shoulders and looked at Trenholme.

To him the scene and the circumstances were very curious.  The house into which they had come was much smaller than Turrif’s.  The room was a dismal one, with no sign of woman or child about it.  Its atmosphere was thick with the smoke of tobacco and the fumes of hot whisky, in which Saul and his host had been indulging.  A soft, homemade candle, guttering on the table, shed a yellow smoky light upon the faces of the bearded men who stood around it.  Saul, perhaps from an awkward feeling of trembling in his long legs, had resumed his seat, his little eyes more beady, his little round cheeks more ruddy, than ever, his whiskers now entirely disregarded in the importance of his self-vindication.

Too proud for asseveration, Trenholme had not much more to say.  He stated briefly that he could not be responsible for the contents of a box when the contents had run away, nor for any harm that the runaway might do to the neighbourhood, adding that the man who had consigned the box to his care must now come and take it away.

He spoke with a fine edge of authority in his voice, as a man speaks who feels himself superior to his circumstances and companions.  He did not look at the men as he spoke, for he was not yet sure whether they gave him the credence for which he would not sue, and he did not care to see if they derided him.