with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never mistake
as long as you lived.'

'Why, souls--'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'

'Hey--what?' said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring
particulars from the shepherd in the background. 'Haven't you got the
man after all?'

'Well, sir,' said the constable, 'he's the man we were in search of,
that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the man
we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you understand my
everyday way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'

'A pretty kettle of fish altogether!' said the magistrate. 'You had
better start for the other man at once.'

The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the
chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. 'Sir,'
he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, 'take no more trouble about
me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have done nothing; my
crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon I
left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to
bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and ask the
way. When I opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother,
that I thought to see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in
this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have
got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life,
singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was
close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of