" The host saw us through the kitchen window,
and ran out to usher us in with the assurance of a brass weathercock.
"Sommat like a jail delivery, eh, y'r 'onour? Gom, if I wudna pinch fifty
'osses to be fetched out o' clink by such a bonny lady, begging your
ladyship's pardon."
"She shall fetch you out," said I sourly, "when you're jailed for not
stealing."
"His honour's commands are a law unto his handmaiden," said Margaret
demurely and icily, addressing him, but aiming point-blank at me. Her shot
blew me clean out of the water, and I stood there guggling like a born
idiot. "Curse you, will you never get out of your yokel's ways?" said I to
myself. It was as if I had said to the sergeant, speaking of Jane, "She
shall draw you a mug of beer." I was clean nonplussed, and felt as
uncomfortable as a boiling crawfish, but fortunately rattle-pate came to
my aid and drowned my confusion in a flood of words.
"And all he said, y'r ladyship, was that Timothy's coat was too big for
'im. Gom, it beat cock-fighting, it did. Swelp me bob it did. I never saw
a man so staggered as the Mayor, but he's got over it fine, and gone 'ome,
good man, with a crick in his back and near on a pint of my best brandy in
his belly.
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