The man rose to his feet still blubbering, and the squirrel moved back from his face. Then she saw the blood on his cheek, and her eyes glowed like fire as she said in a voice that trembled with rage:
"Who's been a drowing stones at my boy?"
"He stole our ale," shouted Tommy Fry boldly, and the rest of the children took up the chorus—"He stole our ale!" And Tommy Fry ended the cry with the word, "Thafe."
The strange woman turned upon him instantly. "You drowed the stone," she said, quivering with rage. "You dare to call mun thafe. You don't spake again till I tell 'ee—mind that. I'll tache 'ee to call my boy names." And Tommy Fry shrank back with staring eyes, appalled at her fury, while she put her arm again tighter round that of the ragged man and began to lead him away.
"No, no, no," broke in a village woman who came up breathless at this moment: "You'm too fast by half. 'Tis the like of he that we want to catch, taking our linen off the hedges. I lost some but two months agone, and I'll be bound 'twas he that did it. What was it was taked away, Mary?" she asked, turning to one of the little girls. "Two pair of stockings and a chimase or one pair of stockings and two chimases? No, no, no; run, my dear, and fetch father home quick. No, stop! Here comes Mr. Brimacott."
And as she spoke there was a sound of hoofs and the Corporal appeared leading a brown horse with a little wreath of laurel hung round his ears and the white rubber spread over his back, on which were seated Dick and Elsie, Dick riding in front brandishing his toffee, while Elsie with her arm round his waist sat quietly behind him.
"What's all this?" said the Corporal, as the horse pricked up his ears over the hubbub before him; and without waiting for a moment he lifted the two children to the ground. Then all the women came clamouring round him with their complaints; and the Corporal frowned, for he loved a tramp as little as any of them.
"'Tain't true," said the strange woman firmly, "'tain't true. He's but a poor harmless lad. Sarch mun, if you will, maister; ye won't find nought."
The Corporal eyed the ragged man keenly. "He looks to be a half-baked body," he said as if to himself.
"Aye, the poor thing's mazed," bleated out an old man who had hobbled down to the edge of his garden to look on.