“Why not send her to Appleby gaol, then?” Tom retorted, with a fair show of sense.
“Because he knows you’ll cosset her here, and he thinks to loose her tongue that way! They can gaol her after, if this don’t answer.”
“Oh, indeed!”
“Ay, while you run the risk! If it’s not that, what’s he doing here?”
“Why should he not be here?” Gilson asked slowly. “Hasn’t he the old house in Furness, not two miles from Newby Bridge! And his mother a Furness woman. I do hear that the boy’s to be brought there for safety till the shires are quieter. And maybe it’s that brings Captain Anthony here.”
“But what has that to do with the young woman you’re going bail for?” the doctor retorted. “Go bail, Tom, for a wench you don’t know, and that’ll jump the moon one of these fine nights! I tell you, man, I never heard the like! Never! Go bail for a girl you don’t know!”
“And I tell you,” cried a voice that made the glasses ring, “I have heard the like! And I’ll give you the man, my lad!” And Mrs. Gilson, putting aside the two who blocked the doorway, confronted the offending Tyson with a look comparable only to that of Dr. Keats of Eaton when he rolled up his sleeves. “I’ll give you the name, my lad!” she repeated.
“Well,” the doctor answered, though he was manifestly taken aback, “you must confess, Mrs. Gilson——”
“Nay, I’ll confess nothing!” the landlady retorted. “What need, when you’re the man? Not give bail for a woman you don’t know? Much you knew of Madge Peters when you made her your wife! And wasn’t that going bail for her? Ay, and bail that you’ll find it hard to get out of, my man, though you may wish to! For the matter of that, it’s small blame to her, whatever comes of it!” Mrs. Gilson continued, setting her arms akimbo. “If all I hear of your goings-on is true! What do you think she’s doing, ill and sick at home, while you’re hanging about old Hinkson’s? Ay, you may look black, but tell me what Bess Hinkson’s doing about my place all this day? I never saw her here twice in a day in all my life before, and——”
“What do you mean?” Tyson cried violently. To hear a thing which he thought no one suspected brought up thus before a roomful of men! He looked black as thunder at his accuser.