'
'Oh, very well indeed, though I don't think I saw or heard anything of
him between the time I went down and the day I read the account of the
inquest on him.'
'Inquest?' said one of the ladies. 'What has happened to him?'
'Why, what happened was that he fell out of a tree and broke his neck.
But the puzzle was, what could have induced him to get up there. It was a
mysterious business, I must say. Here was this man--not an athletic
fellow, was he? and with no eccentric twist about him that was ever
noticed--walking home along a country road late in the evening--no tramps
about--well known and liked in the place--and he suddenly begins to run
like mad, loses his hat and stick, and finally shins up a tree--quite a
difficult tree--growing in the hedgerow: a dead branch gives way, and he
comes down with it and breaks his neck, and there he's found next morning
with the most dreadful face of fear on him that could be imagined. It was
pretty evident, of course, that he had been chased by something, and
people talked of savage dogs, and beasts escaped out of menageries; but
there was nothing to be made of that.
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