"But how can it be otherwise?" asked the constable. "Or why was he
so terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law?" Here
he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering
the house.

"Can't understand it," said the officer, coolly. All I know is
that it is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character
from this one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather
good-looking, and with a musical bass voice that, if you heard it
once, you'd never mistake as long as you lived."

"Why, souls,'t was 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 every-day way; for 't was the man in the
chimney-corner."

"A pretty kettle of fish altogether!" said the magistiate. "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.