“I tell you only what happened,” the chaplain answered, sticking to his point. “She saw no one, and spoke to no one.”
“Hang me if I don’t think you are in with her!” Nadin replied in an insulting tone. And then turning to Henrietta, “Now then, out with it! Where is he?”
But Henrietta, battered by the man’s coarse voice and manner, still held her ground.
“If I knew I should not tell you,” she said.
“Then you’ll go to Appleby gaol!”
“And still I shall not tell you.”
“Understand! Understand!” Nadin replied. “I’ve a warrant here granted in Lancashire and backed here and in order! A warrant to take him. You can see it if you like. Don’t say I took advantage of you. I’m rough, but I’m square,” he continued, his broad dialect such that a Southerner would not have understood him. “The lads know me, and you’ll know me before we’ve done!”
“Then it won’t be for your wisdom!” Mrs. Gilson muttered. And then more loudly, “Why don’t you tell her what’s been done? Happen she knows, and happen she doesn’t. If she does ’tis all one. If she doesn’t you’re talking to deaf ears.”
Nadin shrugged his shoulders and struck his boot with his whip.
“Well,” he said, “an old lass with a long tongue will have her way i’ Lancashire or where it be! Tell her yourself. But she knows, I warrant!”