He lives, nobody knows how--on bright, clean gold, nobody knows whence:
his daughter says, indeed, that her father found a crock of gold in his
garden--but she needs not have held her tongue so long, and borne so
many insults, if that were all the truth; and, mark this! even though
she says it, and declares it on her Bible-oath, Acton himself most
strenuously denied all such findings--but went about with impudent tales
of legacy, luck, nobody knows what; the man prevaricated continually,
and got angry when asked about it--cudgelling folks, and swearing
like--like any one but old-time "honest Roger."
Only look, too, where he lives: in a lone cottage opposite Pike Island,
on the other side of which is Hurstley Hall, the scene of robbery and
murder: was not a boat seen that night upon the lake? and was not the
lawn-door open? How strangely stupid in the coroner and jury not to have
imagined this before! how dull it was of every body round not to have
suspected murder rather more strongly, with those finger-marks about the
throat, and not to have opened their eyes a little wider, when the
murderer's cottage was within five hundred yards of that open lawn-door!
Then again--when Mr.
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