Presently Mrs. Gilson was summoned, and she went out. The others, freed from the constraint of her presence, talked a little louder and a little more freely. And wonder grew. The two village constables, who remained and who felt themselves responsible, looked important, and one cried “Silence” a time or two, as if the court were sitting. The other explained the law, of which he knew as much as a Swedish turnip, on the subject of treason felony. But mixing it up with the Habeas Corpus which was then suspended, he was tripped up by a neighbour before he could reach the minutiæ of the punishment. Which otherwise must have had much interest for the prisoner.
At length the door opened, the other constable cried, “Silence! Silence in the court!” And there entered—the landlady.
The surprise of the little knot of people at the back of the room was great but short-lived.
Mrs. Gilson turned about and surveyed them with her arms akimbo and her lower lip thrust out. “You can all just go!” she said. “And the sooner the better! And if ever I catch you”—to the more successful of the constables, on whose feet her eye had that moment alighted—“up my stairs with those dirty clogs, Peter Harrison, I’ll clout you! Now, off you go! Do you think I keep carpets for loons like you?”
“But—the prisoner?” gasped Peter, clutching at his fast-departing glory. “The prisoner, missus?”
“The goose!” the landlady retorted with indescribable scorn. “Go you down and see what the other ganders think of it. And leave me to mind my business! I’ll see to the prisoner.” And she saw them all out and closed the door.
When the room was clear she tapped Henrietta on the shoulder. “There’s no gaol for you,” she said bluntly. “Though it is not yourself you’ve got to thank for it. They’ve put you in my charge and you’re to stay here, and I’m to answer for you. So you’ll just say straight out if you’ll stay, or if you’ll run.”
Had the girl burst into tears the landlady had found it reasonable. Instead, “Where is he?” Henrietta whispered. She did not even turn her head.
“Didn’t you hear,” Mrs. Gilson retorted, “that he had not been taken?”
“I mean—I mean——”