While he
was lookin' at 'em he asks me to fetch a pair of mine from the fo'c'sle,
so I fetches 'em. When I come back he was pitchin' the boots and shoes
back into the locker. Then, presently, he nips off, and when he was
gone I looked over the shoes, and then I found there was a pair missing.
They was an old pair of Mr. Jezzard's, and what made him nick 'em is
more than I can understand."
"Would you know those shoes if you saw them!"
"Yes, I should," replied the lad.
"Are these the pair?" Anstey handed the boy a pair of dilapidated canvas
shoes, which he seized eagerly.
"Yes, these is the ones what he stole!" he exclaimed.
Anstey took them back from the boy's reluctant hands, and passed them up
to the magistrate's desk. "I think," said he, "that if your Worship will
compare these shoes with the last pair of moulds, you will have no doubt
that these are the shoes which made the footprints from the sea to
Sundersley Gap and back again."
The magistrates together compared the shoes and the moulds amidst a
breathless silence. At length the chairman laid them down on the desk.
"It is impossible to doubt it," said he.
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