"Just stop that. I've heard enough of that dream, and of all your dreams.
Confounded folly! Haven't I trouble and worry enough upon my mind,
without your worrying me every time I come in about your idiotic dreams?"
"Well," returned Mrs. Gum, "if the dream's nothing, I'd like to ask why
they had Pike up to-day before them all?"
"Who had him up?" asked the clerk, after a pause. "Had him up where?"
"Before the people sitting on the body of Lord Hartledon. Lydia Jones
brought me the news just now. 'They had Pike the poacher up,' says she.
'He was up before the jury, and had to confess to it.' 'Confess to what,'
said I. 'Why, that he was about in the woods when my lord met his end,'
said she; 'and it's to know how my lord did meet it, and whether the
poacher mightn't have dealt that blow on his temple and robbed him after
it.' Gum--"
"There's no suspicion of foul play, is there?" interrupted the clerk, in
strangely subdued tones.
"Not that I know of, except in Lydia's temper," answered Mrs. Gum. "But
I don't like to hear he was up there at all."
"Lydia Jones is a foul-tongued woman, capable of swearing away any man's
life. Is Pike in custody?"
"Not yet. They've let him off for the present. Oh, Gum, often and often
do I wish my days were ended!"
"Often and often do I wish I'd a quiet house to come to, and not be
bothered with dreams," was the scornful retort.
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