"Oh," she said. "Jim—Jim Davis. Let's see that shirt of yours, to see if it's got your name on. I been taken in once or twice before. One has to look alive, keeping an inn."
Luckily my name was upon my shirt and stockings, so that she accepted my story without further talk, especially as the contents of my package showed her that I told her the truth about the lugger.
"I don't know what Dick will say," she said. "But now you come up, and I'll dress your head. You'll have to lie low, remember. It won't do for a smuggler like you to be seen about here. So till your friends come, you'll keep pretty dark, remember."
She led me upstairs to plaster my wound. Then she put me into a little bedroom on one of the upper floors, and told me to stay there till she called me. There were one or two books upon the shelf, including a funny one with woodcuts, a collection of tales and ballads, such as the pedlers used to sell in those days. With this book, and with a piece of paper and a pencil, I passed the morning more happily than I can say.
My head felt quite easy after it had been dressed and bandaged. My troubles were nearly over, I thought. In a week my friends would be there to fetch me away. In three days they would get my letter and hear all about my adventures; so as I wrote I almost sang aloud; I was so happy at the thought of my sorrows being ended. Mrs Dick (I never learned her real name till some years afterwards) brought me some bread and cheese at midday. As I ate, she sealed and addressed my letter for me, and took it over to the post-house, so that the postman could carry it to meet the mail, as it drove past from Rye towards London.
After my midday meal I felt strangely weary; perhaps all my excitements had been too much for me. When Mrs Dick came back to say that she had posted my letter I was almost asleep; but her manner was so strange that it roused me. She could hardly speak from anxiety and terror.
"Oh," she cried, "they have raised the whole country. My Dick'll be taken. He will. He will. They're riding all through the land arresting everybody. And they're going to hang them all, they say, as soon as they can give them their trials."
She cried and cried as though her heart would break. I did what I could to comfort her, but still she cried hysterically, and for all that afternoon she sobbed and laughed in the little upper bedroom, only going out at rare intervals, to peep into the bar, where her servant served the guests.
Towards five o'clock, the servant came running upstairs to say that a lot of the smugglers had been taken. "A whole boatload," the girl said, so that now it would "all come out, and master would be hanged." Mrs Dick told her not to talk in that way of her master, but to find out if any of the men had peached.
When the girl had gone she seemed to collect herself. She became a different woman in a minute.