Convince them, however, he did—all except Mr.
      Pennifeather, and, in the end, it was arranged that a search should be
      instituted, carefully and very thoroughly, by the burghers en masse, “Old
      Charley” himself leading the way. As for the matter of that, there could have been no better pioneer than
      “Old Charley,” whom everybody knew to have the eye of a lynx; but,
      although he led them into all manner of out-of-the-way holes and corners,
      by routes that nobody had ever suspected of existing in the neighbourhood,
      and although the search was incessantly kept up day and night for nearly a
      week, still no trace of Mr. Shuttleworthy could be discovered. When I say
      no trace, however, I must not be understood to speak literally; for trace,
      to some extent, there certainly was. The poor gentleman had been tracked,
      by his horse’s shoes (which were peculiar), to a spot about three miles to
      the east of the borough, on the main road leading to the city. Here the
      track made off into a by-path through a piece of woodland—the path
      coming out again into the main road, and cutting off about half a mile of
      the regular distance. Following the shoe-marks down this lane, the party
      came at length to a pool of stagnant water, half hidden by the brambles,
      to the right of the lane, and opposite this pool all vestige of the track
      was lost sight of. It appeared, however, that a struggle of some nature
      had here taken place, and it seemed as if some large and heavy body, much
      larger and heavier than a man, had been drawn from the by-path to the
      pool. This latter was carefully dragged twice, but nothing was found; and
      the party was upon the point of going away, in despair of coming to any
      result, when Providence suggested to Mr. Goodfellow the expediency of
      draining the water off altogether. This project was received with cheers,
      and many high compliments to “Old Charley” upon his sagacity and
      consideration. As many of the burghers had brought spades with them,
      supposing that they might possibly be called upon to disinter a corpse,
      the drain was easily and speedily effected; and no sooner was the bottom
      visible, than right in the middle of the mud that remained was discovered
      a black silk velvet waistcoat, which nearly every one present immediately
      recognized as the property of Mr. Pennifeather. This waistcoat was much
      torn and stained with blood, and there were several persons among the
      party who had a distinct remembrance of its having been worn by its owner
      on the very morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy’s departure for the city; while
      there were others, again, ready to testify upon oath, if required, that
      Mr. P. did not wear the garment in question at any period during the
      remainder of that memorable day, nor could any one be found to say that he
      had seen it upon Mr. P.’s person at any period at all subsequent to Mr.
      Shuttleworthy’s disappearance. Matters now wore a very serious aspect for Mr. Pennifeather, and it was
      observed, as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions which were
      excited against him, that he grew exceedingly pale, and when asked what he
      had to say for himself, was utterly incapable of saying a word. Hereupon,
      the few friends his riotous mode of living had left him deserted him at
      once to a man, and were even more clamorous than his ancient and avowed
      enemies for his instantaneous arrest. But, on the other hand, the
      magnanimity of Mr. Goodfellow shone forth with only the more brilliant
      lustre through contrast. He made a warm and intensely eloquent defence of
      Mr. Pennifeather, in which he alluded more than once to his own sincere
      forgiveness of that wild young gentleman—“the heir of the worthy Mr.
      Shuttleworthy,”—for the insult which he (the young gentleman) had,
      no doubt in the heat of passion, thought proper to put upon him (Mr.
      Goodfellow). “He forgave him for it,” he said, “from the very bottom of
      his heart; and for himself (Mr. Goodfellow), so far from pushing the
      suspicious circumstances to extremity, which he was sorry to say, really
      had arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr. Goodfellow) would make every
      exertion in his power, would employ all the little eloquence in his
      possession to—to—to—soften down, as much as he could
      conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceedingly
      perplexing piece of business.”


      Mr. Goodfellow went on for some half hour longer in this strain, very much
      to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your warm-hearted
      people are seldom apposite in their observations—they run into all
      sorts of blunders, contre-temps and mal apropos-isms, in the
      hot-headedness of their zeal to serve a friend—thus, often with the
      kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice his
      cause than to advance it. So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of “Old
      Charley”; for, although he laboured earnestly in behalf of the suspected,
      yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable he uttered of
      which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt the speaker in
      the good opinion of his audience, had the effect to deepen the suspicion
      already attached to the individual whose cause he pleaded, and to arouse
      against him the fury of the mob. One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator was his
      allusion to the suspected as “the heir of the worthy old gentleman Mr.
      Shuttleworthy.” The people had really never thought of this before. They
      had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered a year or
      two previously by the uncle (who had no living relative except the
      nephew), and they had, therefore, always looked upon this disinheritance
      as a matter that was settled—so single-minded a race of beings were
      the Rattleburghers; but the remark of “Old Charley” brought them at once
      to a consideration of this point, and thus gave them to see the
      possibility of the threats having been nothing more than a threat. And
      straightway hereupon, arose the natural question of cui bono?—a
      question that tended even more than the waistcoat to fasten the terrible
      crime upon the young man. And here, lest I may be misunderstood, permit me
      to digress for one moment merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and
      simple Latin phrase which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated and
      misconceived.