"We didn't kill at all: he was one of those "longshore dog-foxes, and got
away home on the cliff." Stephen thumped his knee. "It's my belief the
smell o' sea gives 'em extra cunning."

"The beggar seems to have put ye out rether--eh, Steeve?"

So it was generally presumed: and yet the charge of madness was very
staggering; madness being, in the first place, indefensible, and
everybody's enemy when at large; and Robert's behaviour looked extremely
like it. It had already been as a black shadow haunting enthusiastic
minds in the village, and there fell a short silence, during which
Stephen made his preparations for filling and lighting a pipe.

"Come; how do you make out he's mad?"

Jolly Butcher Billing spoke; but with none of the irony of confidence.

"Oh!" Stephen merely clapped both elbows against his sides.

Several pairs of eyes were studying him. He glanced over them in turn,
and commenced leisurely the puff contemplative.

"Don't happen to have a grudge of e'er a kind against old Bob, Steeve?"

"Not I!"

Mrs. Boulby herself brought his glass to Stephen, and, retreating, left
the parlour-door open.