“But,” said Mr. Degge, “you should have seized the very first opportunity to get away, and inform the magistrates of the murder.”
“Ay, sir,” said the woman, “that’s what ween done.”
“Let your husband speak first, Jenny,” said Gethin Thorne, the clerk, “you’re always so ready with your tongue.”
“Oh, let her speak, sir,” said the husband. “She can tell you about it better than I can. It is she as awlis does the talking for us; my poor head, ’specially since the murder, is just no where at all.”
“Well, Jenny, speak then,” said Sir Henry Clavering. “You say you have now come to tell us of the murder; but this is more than a year after it took place. You must have had plenty of opportunities before.”
“No, your worship,” said the old woman; “no, as God knows, never! That Scammel has had us awlis wi’ him. We were never quite out of his sight. He trapesed us off after the murder, away, and away; travelling o’ nights, lying in woods and mosses by day. Oh! how he did hallecx us about the country; till we came to that Charnwood Forest where he was taken. There he watched us as a cat watches a mouse: and he said, savourly, if we ever made the least attempt to escape, he would just knock our foolish brains out; and he would, too. If ever the devil was in a man, he was in Scammel.”
“And how did you live all that time?”
“Live? Oh, we did not live so badly. Scammel had plenty o’ money: and wherever there were hares and pheasants, would not Scammel have his share? I rather guess he would. But our meat did us no good, nor our bread neither, for we got good bread out of the villages.”
“Who fetched it?”
“We did, yer honour.”