“After my hens,” said the first man breathlessly. “I just heard ’em in time.”
“I wasn’t after your hens. I didn’t know they was there!” gasped the cook.
“Lock him up!” said the second man warmly.
“I’m goin’ to,” said the other, “Keep still, you thief!”
“Get up!” said the cook faintly; “you’re killin’ me.
“Take him in the house and tie him up for the night, and we’ll take him to Winton police station in the morning,” said the neighbor. “He’s a desperate character.”
As they declined to trust the cook to walk, he was carried into the kitchen, where the woman, leaving him for a moment, struck a match and hastily lit a candle. She then opened a drawer and, to the cook’s horror, began pulling out about twenty fathoms of clothes-line.
“The best way and the safest is to tie him in a chair,” said the neighbor. “I remember my gran’-father used to tell a tale of how they served a highwayman that way once.”
“That would be best, I think,” said the woman pondering. “He’d be more comfortable in a chair, though I’m sure he don’t deserve it.”
They raised the exhausted cook, and placing him in a stout oak chair, lashed him to it until he could scarcely breathe.