“You’d be clever to catch him, Master Johnny,” roared out old Jones after me. “His worship jumped into his gig; it was a-waiting for him when he come out; and his clerk druv him off at a slapping pace.”
It was true. The coroner was gone; and old Jones had it all his own way; for, you see, none of us liked to interfere with the edict of an official gentleman who held sway in the county and sat on dead people. Abel Crew accepted the alternative meekly.
“Any way, you must allow me to go home first to lock my house up, and to see to one or two other little matters,” said he.
“Not unless you goes under my own eyes,” retorted old Jones. “You might be for destroying your stock o’ pills for fear they should bear evidence again’ you, Abel Crew.”
“My pills are, of all things, what I would not destroy,” said Abel. “They would bear testimony for me, instead of against me, for they are harmless.”
So Abel Crew hobbled to his cottage on the common, attended by old Jones and a tail of followers. Arrived there, he attended the first thing to his scalded foot, dressing it with some of his own ointment. Then he secured some bread and butter, not knowing what the accommodation at the lock-up might be in the shape of eatables, and changed his handsome quaint suit of clothes for those he wore every day. After that, he was escorted back to the lock-up.
Now, the lock-up was in Piefinch Cut, nearly opposite to Dovey the blacksmith’s. The Squire remembered the time when the lock-up stood alone; when Piefinch Cut had no more houses in it than Piefinch Lane now has; but since then Piefinch Cut had been built upon and inhabited; houses touching even the sacred walls of the lock-up. A tape-and-cotton and sweetstuff shop supported it on one side, and a small pork-butcher’s on the other. Pettipher’s drug shop, should anybody be curious on the point, was next to the tape-and-cotton mart.
To see Abel Crew arriving in the custody of old Jones the constable, the excited stragglers after them, astonished Piefinch Cut not a little. Figg the pawnbroker—who was originally from Alcester—considered himself learned in the law. Anyway, he was a great talker, and liked to give his opinion upon every topic that might turn up. His shop joined Dovey’s forge: and when we arrived there, Figg was outside, holding forth to Dovey, who had his shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows as usual, his leather apron on. Mrs. Dovey stood listening behind, in the smart gown and red-ribboned bonnet she had worn at the inquest.
“Why—what on earth!—have they been and gone and took up Crew?” cried Figg in surprise.
“It is an awful shame of old Jones,” I broke in; speaking more to Dovey than Figg, for Figg was no favourite of mine. “A whole week of the lock-up! Only think of it, Dovey!”