Such a man was not likely to neglect
the clue of the tinder-box, and an inquiry was set on foot
concerning a pedlar, name unknown, with curly black hair and a foreign
complexion, carrying a box of cutlery and jewellery, and wearing large
rings in his ears. But either because inquiry was too slow-footed to
overtake him, or because the description applied to so many pedlars
that inquiry did not know how to choose among them, weeks passed away,
and there was no other result concerning the robbery than a gradual
cessation of the excitement it had caused in Raveloe. Dunstan Cass's
absence was hardly a subject of remark: he had once before had a
quarrel with his father, and had gone off, nobody knew whither, to
return at the end of six weeks, take up his old quarters
unforbidden, and swagger as usual. His own family, who equally
expected this issue, with the sole difference that the Squire was
determined this time to forbid him the old quarters, never mentioned
his absence; and when his uncle Kimble or Mr Osgood noticed it, the
story of his having killed Wildfire, and committed some offence
against his father, was enough to prevent surprise. To connect the
fact of Dunsey's disappearance with that of the robbery occurring on
the same day, lay quite away from the track of everyone's thought-
even Godfrey's, who had better reason than anyone else to know what
his brother was capable of.
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