“Oh! sir! for heaven’s sake don’t do that,” he cried. “I’m a ruined man if you take the corn, for I be answerable for it to the owner. And I’ve other orders for carting back from Henley. Have mercy, sir, on a poor old carrier that’s old enough to be your grandsire.”
“Curse you, I say we need the corn in Oxford; why should it go to feed those rebel dogs in London?”
“Why, now I think of it,” said Jock, “you must be the very man I’ve a message for. Doth not your officer lie at Watlington?”
“Ay! what of him?”
“Well, sir, he bade me tell you to wait on him at the ‘Hare and Hounds’ as you returned, and if so be I clapped eyes on some wandering minstrels I was to tell ye.”
“Why, yes, to be sure; have you come across them?” said the sergeant eagerly.
“Well, sir, I did hear a man a-singin’ as he journeyed along the road a matter O’ five miles from here, singin’ a ballad, he was, about the cramp in his purse.”
“Well, well; and was he alone?”
“Nay, I think there was a couple o’ men with him, but I only heard the one a-singin’,” said Jock, his honest face boldly confronting his questioner.
“Five miles back! then we shall soon come up with them. Since you have told us this I’ll not force you to drive back to Oxford with your load, but my men shall take a couple of sacks before them on their saddles as toll.”