CHAPTER V.
THE SKY BRIGHTENS.
In the morning at eleven o’clock Hopcraft was brought up in custody to Cotmanhaye Manor. He was brought in a covered cart belonging to Sir Henry Clavering to avoid observation, but the whole neighbourhood was astir. The events of yesterday were the topic of conversation throughout both Woodburn and Rockville. The village parliament, as it was called, at the Grey Goose in Woodburn, in the evening had been crowded, greatly to the profit of Tim Bentley, the landlord. The cleverness of Tom Boddily hunting up Scammel in the guise of a tramp had been loudly applauded. It was declared to be still grander than his taking the horse-thief asleep on the back of Miss Heritage’s stolen mare. He was unitedly voted “a long-headed chap.” The desperate affair of Scammel’s attempt to escape out of the justice-room at Cotmanhaye Manor; the chase of magistrate and men after him; his swim for it in the river, and his going down rather than be taken—all was declared out of the common way, and a subject to be talked of for the next hundred years. “He was a plucky fellow, was that Joe Scammel,” said Howell Crusoe; “if he had had an education, he might have turned out something remarkable.”
“He could kick remarkable hard,” said Job Latter. “I’ve the marks of his clouted shoes on my shins yet, i’ aw’ th’ colours of the rainbow.”
“Ay, by Guy,” said Tim Bentley. “That must have been a tuzzle wi’ him when you got him in yer grip. It were worth a trifle to ha’ seen it.”
“I believe you,” said Latter; “it was better to look at than feel. I verily believe he has spelched actchul pieces out of my shin bones. The doctor says he’s afeard they are gone green; and he need na’—any body can see that. They are green, and blue, and every mander of colour.”
“What the doctor meant,” said Crusoe, “was, he was afraid of gangrene—that is, mortification.”
“Nonsense!” said Latter, rather frightened though; “when a man’s legs martify they ta’en ’em off, and he’s not going, I can tell him, to tak’ my legs off. They’re a better pair o’ legs than th’ doctor’s got his sen, barrin’ these toothry brusses.”
“No,” said Crusoe, “he does not mean to take your legs off, but to caustic the mortified flesh, and get it away.”
“Oh,” said Latter, “if he canna mak a cure on ’em, I can. I’ll lay some of my green sauve on, such as I dresses hosses wi’. As for Scammel, poor devil, they canna hang him, anyhow; and I’m rather glad on’t, as I helped to catch him.”