“Thank ye,” said Ashbrook. “You are looking just the same as ever, Mrs. Bagley—not a bit altered since I last saw you—not a day older.”
“Ah, Master Ashbrook, I be older, and, what be more, I find it out. My back is so weak at times that I hardly know how to hold myself up; but I haven’t any great reason to complain, all things considered.”
“You are happy and contented—that’s the chief thing.”
“Well I do hope as I never was one of the complaining sort, poor dear Bagley used to say.”
“Oh,” thought the farmer, “if I once let her loose on that string, we shall have to listen to her for heaven knows how long.”
He therefore interrupted her with a sharp query.
“We have called here, being in the hopes of learning something about the robbery at Nettlethorpe’s. Do you know anything about it?” cried Ashbrook, all in a breath.
“Aye, Master Ashbrook; I know something about it.”
“Well, then, tell us—there’s a good soul.”
“It went this way, Master Ashbrook. You must know that, four or five days it might be—I couldn’t swear which it was—two men came a drivin’ round the country in a gig; I saw ’em myself—one a rare big black-mouthed-looking fellow as ever you’d wish to see.”