are going into the upper waters: but I thought that we wouldn't stop
there, or we shall be belated as to the haymaking up our way. So
Oxford and my learned lecture on it, all got at second-hand from my
old kinsman, must wait till we come down the water a fortnight
hence."

I listened to this story with much surprise, and could not help
wondering at first that the man who had slain the other had not been
put in custody till it could be proved that he killed his rival in
self-defence only. However, the more I thought of it, the plainer it
grew to me that no amount of examination of witnesses, who had
witnessed nothing but the ill-blood between the two rivals, would
have done anything to clear up the case. I could not help thinking,
also, that the remorse of this homicide gave point to what old
Hammond had said to me about the way in which this strange people
dealt with what I had been used to hear called crimes. Truly, the
remorse was exaggerated; but it was quite clear that the slayer took
the whole consequences of the act upon himself, and did not expect
society to whitewash him by punishing him. I had no fear any longer
that "the sacredness of human life" was likely to suffer amongst my
friends from the absence of gallows and prison.



CHAPTER XXV: THE THIRD DAY ON THE THAMES



As we went down to the boat next morning, Walter could not quite keep
off the subject of last night, though he was more hopeful than he had