At about eight o'clock in the morning, as I passed from one field to
another, I crossed the main road at the point where it reached the top
of a hill.
I read some news on the ground, and this is what it said
"_Mrs. Sharp is ill this morning; and Johnny Milne has been to the
railway station to fetch some newspapers._"
This was how I got at it.
There were only two fresh tracks. One was of a boy walking and the
other of a bicycle.
The boy's footmarks showed a nailed boot, not big enough for a man,
walking along the road which led to the school and to the railway
station. It was Saturday, a whole holiday, so he could not be going to
school; he would therefore be going to the station.
Why to the station? Because at 7.33 the train came with the
newspapers, and there were his tracks going back again, (_They
occasionally overtrod the outgoing footprints._)
One boy in the village, Johnny Milne, was employed by the shop to
fetch the papers from the train.
So if the train were punctual he would have passed this spot on his
way back about twenty minutes later; that was at seven minutes to
eight.
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