"What's the meaning of this?" said the serjeant staring for a moment. "The deserter for a guinea! After him boys, quick! There's a reward out for him." And away went the drummer and fifer in pursuit, while the serjeant followed as fast as he could; and the children, after gazing for a time in bewildered alarm, ran back to the house. The idiot ran like the wind, but in his first terror he had taken the wrong direction and was flying down towards the village. Reaching the drive before his pursuers he gained on them somewhat, but he fumbled at the gate by the lodge and let them get close to him. He broke away, however, and was running gallantly through the village with the lads hard after him, when down the road came the ample figure of Mrs. Mugford, who put down the pitcher that she was carrying and stood right in his way with her arms spread out wide. She did not dare actually to stop him, but she so confused him that in another few yards the drummer and fifer had caught him each by an arm. The idiot cowered abject and trembling between them, and the three stood panting and breathless, while Mrs. Mugford exhorted at the top of her voice,
"Hold mun fast, brave lads!" she cried, in a very different tone from that which she had lately used to the soldiers. "Hold mun fast! That's the man you was a looking vor. Hold mun fast! Ah, you roog; so we've a got 'ee at last, and now 'twill be the jail and the gallows for 'ee sure enough. Ah! you may whine and guggle, but you won't get away, not this time." Her cries brought every woman in the village to the spot, and solemn were the shakings of heads, and loud the recalling of prophecies that vengeance would soon overtake the wicked. Then the serjeant came elbowing his way through the crowd, and was hailed instantly, like the drummer and fifer, by Mrs. Mugford. "That's the man you'm a looking for, maister; and a bad one he is. Hold mun fast, maister; and don't let mun go, whatever."
"Ah! you know him, do you?" said the serjeant. "Well, you can trust him to me. Take the drum off his back, my lads, and bring him along."
But the idiot seemed hardly able to move; and they had not taken him far, with the women and children still crowding round them, when they were stopped by his mother, who came hastening up the road and planted herself full in the way.
"Now, then," she said sharply, "what be doing to that boy? Let mun go. He's a done no harm to you, I reckon. Let mun go, I tell 'ee. Where be taking mun?"
"Come, mistress, no hard words," answered the serjeant. "I don't know who you are; but this young man's my prisoner, and to Kingstoke he must go tonight, and before the nearest justice to-morrow for a deserter."
"Ay, and for a witch too and you with mun," yelled Mrs. Fry; and she and the women with her raised a howl that was not pleasant to hear. "She's awitched my boy," screamed Mrs. Fry high above the rest. "She's a witch and she ought to be drownded in the river."
The serjeant looked puzzled, and was relieved to see the Corporal come limping up the road; but Mrs. Mugford no sooner saw him than she screamed at the top of her voice, "Ah, don't 'ee listen to he, maister. 'Twas he that let mun go weeks agone, and there's been nothing but bad work for us all since then. He's so bad as any o' mun; 'twas he that let mun take her Ladyship's childer; and we'm not going to be plagued with witches no more. Lave the witches to us. We knows what to do with mun."
"What have you got against the man?" asked the Corporal of the serjeant.
"He's a deserter," said the serjeant shortly, "and it seems that these women know him well enough, if you don't."