He would have fain been policeman, magistrate, accusing
speaker, all; but most of all, the judge, rising with full sentence
of death on his lips.
That afternoon, as Jane Wilson had begun to feel the effect of a
night's disturbed rest, evinced in frequent droppings off to sleep,
while she sat by her sister-in-law's bedside, lulled by the
incessant crooning of the invalid's feeble voice, she was startled
by a man speaking in the house-place below, who, wearied of knocking
at the door, without obtaining any answer, had entered and was
calling lustily for--
"Missis! missis!"
When Mrs. Wilson caught a glimpse of the intruder through the
stair-rails, she at once saw he was a stranger, a working-man, it
might be a fellow-labourer with her son, for his dress was grimy
enough for the supposition. He held a gun in his hand.
"May I make bold to ask if this gun belongs to your son?"
She first looked at the man, and then, weary and half asleep, not
seeing any reason for refusing to answer the inquiry, she moved
forward to examine it, talking while she looked for certain
old-fashioned ornaments on the stock.
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