"Ise warrant her can take care of herself," answered the old man. "I never meddled with missis's business, nor never will. And if her choose to send her horse home, her has the right to please herself;" and he resumed his sweeping with an immovable face, and neither persuasion nor entreaty could win another word from him.
Mr. Rogers stood awhile in perplexity, and then turned to try his fortune at the Hall. But there the constable could tell him nothing that he did not know already, and he began to despair of finding any further trace of the fugitive. He ran over in his mind the places Dick had mentioned. It seemed mere folly to hope to hear of her at Hunstanton. But at the thought of Hunstanton the remembrance of Harrison's description of the good-natured landlady at the Royal Oak suddenly flashed on him. It was just possible that the girl might have fled there, and thrown herself on the protection of the only person who seemed to have had a kind word for her in her extremity. He turned his weary horse, and trotted forward to Hunstanton.
The great door of the inn stood hospitably open, but the usual air of joviality seemed to have forsaken the place. The stable-man stood idly by the horse-trough, gossiping with two scared-looking maids, and a knot of boys stared up at the windows of the great house as if they expected to see some strange sight to appear. The maids fled as the visitor drew rein at the door.
"Is there trouble in the house, friend?" asked Mr. Rogers, as he dismounted.
The hostler shook his head solemnly. "'Tain't for me to say if it be trouble, nor what it be. The less I says the better, if missus be in hearing; but here her comes, and her'll do all the talking, I reckon."
Mistress Joyce's voice indeed went before her as she bustled from the back regions to receive her guest, and if her face was somewhat pale and her cap was awry, her hospitality was as ready, and her tongue as voluble as ever. The newcomer could but partly state his errand when she launched forth—
"Desire news of Mistress Perrient, sir? Ay, dear, dear, dear! Poor, sweet young gentlewoman! Pray, sir, come in, and take a chair in my parlour. I am rare glad to see any one who is a friend to our young lady. John hostler, take the gentleman's nag. All the way from Lynn! You do fare to be wholly weary, and your nag, too. Mistress Perrient! Why, sir, I have known her since she was that high. My husband held one of Sir Gyles' farms when first we came into this country. A sweet young gentlewoman she always has been, and a Perrient from top to toe. They be all as proud as proud. Old Sir Gyles, now, he was like as it were a king in the county. But to think of the constables making bold to lock our young lady up. No wonder the spirit of her couldn't brook it!"
"But what did she do, good dame; how could she not brook it? Where is she now? Do you know aught of her?"
"I would I knew," answered Mrs. Joyce, shaking her head solemnly; "but I have my thoughts, whatever folks may say. All I can say is, I saw her locked up in my best chamber on Wednesday night, and next morning, when Tom Constable opened the door, he fared to be wholly stanned, for there was naught to be seen, no more than if her'd flown out of window. Some folks are so bold as to say she 'as made away with herself, but that I'll never credit. I fare to think if ever miracles are worked 'tis the time for such to come to pass when a sweet young gentlewoman, and one of the real quality, is locked up by them jacks-in-office! Don't you think so, sir? And all for to furbish up Justice Tomkins' new loyalty, and cloak his old treasons. That's why he's so set on finding Mistress Perrient. 'A plot, a plot,' says he, 'and Fifth Monarchy men, and what not, from London, and a conspiracy with Mistress Perrient for to kill the king.' A plot, it is sure enough, and Justice Tomkins' devising, for to make him a grandee! I can't abide that Tomkins. A mercer he was, in Norwich, and a kind of a preacher, and now he has made money, they've made him a justice, save the mark. And if he can furbish up a great enough plot, he is assured it will bring him his knighthood at the least. And so he goeth up and down, that maliceful to our young lady—only thanks be, she have escaped the claws of him. The only thing that troubles me is the noises. Leastways, they doesn't trouble me, not to say real trouble; I hope I can keep my wits about me. 'Tis but those idle huzzies that talk of ghosts and noises."
"The noises! What manner of noises?"