I may occupy the interval by answering two questions which will arise in
your minds in this place. How did Dubourg come to be tried for his life?
And what was the connection between this serious matter and the false
testimony of a clock?

The reply to both these inquiries is to be found in the story which I
call the Perjury of the Clock.

In briefly relating this curious incidental narrative (which I take from
a statement of the circumstances placed in my possession) I shall speak
of our new acquaintance at Browndown--and shall continue to speak of him
throughout these pages--by his assumed name. In the first place, it was
the maiden name of his mother, and he had a right to take it if he
pleased. In the second place, the date of our domestic drama at Dimchurch
goes back as far as the years 'fifty-eight and 'fifty-nine; and real
names are (now that it is all over) of no consequence to anybody. With
"Dubourg" we have begun. With "Dubourg" let us go on to the end.

On a summer evening, some years ago, a man was found murdered in a field
near a certain town in the West of England. The name of the field was,
"Pardon's Piece."

The man was a small carpenter and builder in the town, who bore an
indifferent character. On the evening in question, a distant relative of
his, employed as farm-bailiff by a gentleman in the neighborhood,
happened to be passing a stile which led from the field into a road, and
saw a gentleman leaving the field by way of this stile, rather in a
hurry. He recognized the gentleman as Mr. Dubourg.

The two passed each other on the road in opposite directions. After a