"Jonas," said the sister, who had turned deadly white, and who lowered the lantern, unable longer to hold it to her brother's face with steady hand, "Jonas, you never ort to ha' married into a gallus family; you've ketched the complaint. It's bad enough to have men hanged on top o' Hind Head. We don't want another gibbet down at the bottom of the Punch-Bowl, and that for one of ourselves."
Then voices were audible outside, and a light flickered through the window.
In abject terror the Broom-Squire screamed "Sally, save me, hide me; it's the constables!"
He cowered into a corner, then darted into the back kitchen, and groped for some place of concealment.
He heard thence the voices more distinctly. There was a tramp of feet in his kitchen; a flare of fuller light than that afforded by Mrs. Rocliffe's lantern ran in through the door he had left ajar.
The sweat poured over his face and blinded his eyes.
Bideabout's anxiety was by no means diminished when he recognized one of the voices in his front kitchen as that of Iver.
Had Iver watched him instead of returning to the Ship? Had he followed in his track, spying what he did? Had he seen what had taken place by the twisted pine with the magpies' nests in it? And if so, had he hasted to Thursley to call out the constable, and to arrest him as the murderer of his wife.
Trembling, gnawing the nails of his right hand, cowering behind the copper, he waited, not knowing whither to fly.
Then the door was thrust open, and Sally Rocliffe came in and called to him: "Jonas! here is Master Iver Verstage—very good he is to you—he has brought a doctor to attend to your arm."