"Where did you pass Tuesday afternoon during your master's absence?"
sternly demanded the coroner. "Take your hands from your face and answer
me, boy."
David Ripper obeyed in the best manner he was capable of, considering his
agitation. "I dun know now where I was," he said. "I was about."
"About where?"
Mr. Ripper apparently could not say where. He thought he was "setting his
bird-trap" in the stubble-field; and he see a partridge, and watched
where it scudded to; but he wasn't nigh the mill the whole time.
"Did you see anything of Lord Hartledon when he was in the skiff?"
"I never saw him," he sobbed. "I wasn't nigh the mill at all, and never
saw him nor the skiff."
"What time did you get back to the mill?" asked the coroner.
He didn't know what time it was; his master and missis had come home.
This was true, Mr. Floyd said. They had been back some little time before
Ripper showed himself. The first intimation he received of that truant's
presence was when he drew his attention to the loose skiff.
"How came you to see the skiff?" sharply asked the coroner.
Ripper spoke up with trembling lips. He was waiting outside after he came
up, and afraid to go in lest his master should beat him for not taking
the sacks, which went clean out of his mind, they did, and then he saw
the little boat; upon which he called out and told his master.
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