But Clerk Gum was unable to give any satisfactory response.  No doubt he had heard enough of what Gordon was like at the time, he observed, but it had passed out of his memory.  A fair man, he thought he was described, with light hair.  He had heard nothing of Gordon since; didn’t want to, if his lordship would excuse his saying it; firmly believed he was at the bottom of the sea.

Patient, respectful, apparently candid, he spoke, attending his guest, hat in hand, to the outer gate, when it pleased him to depart.  But, take it for all in all, there remained a certain doubtful feeling in Lord Hartledon’s mind regarding the interview; for some subtle discernment had whispered to him that both Gum and his wife could have given him the description of Gordon, and would not do so.

He turned slowly towards home, thinking of this.  As he passed the waste ground and Pike’s shed, he cast his eyes towards it; a curl of smoke was ascending from the extemporized chimney, still discernible in the twilight.  It occurred to Lord Hartledon that this man, who had the character of being so lawless, had been rather suspiciously intimate with the man Gorton.  Not that the intimacy in itself was suspicious; birds of a feather flocked together; but the most simple and natural thing connected with Gorton would have borne suspicion to Hartledon’s mind now.

He had barely passed the gate when some shouting arose in the road behind him.  A man, driving a cart recklessly, had almost come in contact with another cart, and some hard language ensued.  Lord Hartledon turned his head quickly, and just caught Mr. Pike’s head, thrust a little over the top of the gate, watching him.  Pike must have crouched down when Lord Hartledon passed.  He went back at once; and Pike put a bold face on the matter, and stood up.

“So you occupy your palace still, Pike?”

“Such as it is.  Yes.”

“I half-expected to find that Mr. Marris had turned you from it,” continued Lord Hartledon, alluding to his steward.

“He wouldn’t do it, I expect, without your lordship’s orders; and I don’t fancy you’ll give ’em,” was the free answer.

“I think my brother would have given them, had he lived.”

“But he didn’t live,” rejoined Pike.  “He wasn’t let live.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lord Hartledon, mystified by the words.

Pike ignored the question. “’Twas nearly a smash,” he said, looking at the two carts now proceeding on their different ways.  “That cart of Floyd’s is always in hot water; the man drinks; Floyd turned him off once.”

The miller’s cart was jogging up the road towards home, under convoy of the offending driver; the boy, David Ripper, sitting inside on some empty sacks, and looking over the board behind:  looking very hard indeed, as it seemed, in their direction.  Mr. Pike appropriated the gaze.

“Yes, you may stare, young Rip!” he apostrophized, as if the boy could hear him; “but you won’t stare yourself out of my hands.  You’re the biggest liar in Calne, but you don’t mislead me.”