Part 28

The Chairman, passing his hand over his hard, alert face, that of a master of hounds, asked:

'Did you see any dirt on the loaf? Be careful!'

The baker answered stolidly:

'Not a speck.'

Dr. Becket, a slight man with a short grey beard, and eyes restive from having to notice painful things, spoke.

'Had your horse moved?'

''E never moves.'

'Ha, ha!' came the rector's laugh.

The Chairman said sharply:

'Well, stand down; call the next witness.--Charles Stodder, carpenter. Very well! Go on, and tell us what you know.'

But before he could speak the rector called out in a loud voice: 'Chapel!'

'Hsssh! Sir!' But through the body of the court had passed a murmur, of challenge, as it were, from one aisle to the other.

The witness, a square man with a red face, grey hair, whiskers, and moustache, and lively excitable dark eyes, watering with anxiety, spoke in a fast soft voice:

'Tuesday afternoon, your Worships, it might be about four o'clock, I was passin' up the village, an' I saw the rector at his gate, with a loaf in 'is 'and.'

'Show us how.'

The witness held his black hat to his side, with the rounded top outwards.

'Was the loaf clean or dirty?'

Sweetening his little eyes, the witness answered:

'I should say 'twas clean.'

'Lie!'

The Chairman said sternly:

'You mustn't interrupt, sir.--You didn't see the bottom of the loaf?'

The witness's little eyes snapped.

'Not eggzactly.'

'Did the rector speak to you?'

The witness smiled. 'The rector wouldn' never stop me if I was passin'. I collects the rates.'

The rector's laugh, so like a desolate dog's bark, killed the bubble of gaiety rising in the court; and again that deathly little silence followed.

Then the Chairman said: