He was the bailiff Scroope, whom you put
up to witness against me. Their victim was the messenger from the
castle, and he was James Wilson, otherwise Wilson Garth. You know
this? No? Then listen. Rumor of his treachery, and of the price he had
been paid for it, had already been bruited abroad, and the two
scoundrels had gone out to waylay and rob him. He was lamed in the
struggle and faint from loss of blood. I took him back and bound up
his wound. He limped to the end of his life."
"Still I fail to see how this touches myself," interrupted the
sheriff.
"Really? I shall show you. Next morning, under cover of a thick fog,
we besieged the city. We got beneath your guns and against your gates
before we were seen. Then a company of horse came out to us. _You_
were there. You remember it? Yes? At one moment we came within four
yards. I saw you struck down and reel out of the saddle. 'This man,' I
thought, 'believes in his heart that I did him a grievous wrong. I
shall now do him a signal service, though he never hear of it until
the Judgment Day.
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