"Yes," answered Mehetabel. "He was always kind to me."

The ostler of the Ship stumbled up the stairs and saluted the sick girl with cordiality and respect.

"Very sorry about this little affair. 'Tis a pity, I sez, that such a fuss be made over trifles. There's been the crownin' of the body, and now there's to be the hearin' of you afore the magistrates, and then they say you'll have to go to the 'sizez, and there'll come the hangin'. 'Tis terrible lot o' fuss all about Jonas as wasn't worth it. No one'll miss him and if you did kill him, well, there was cause, and I don't think the wuss o' you for it."

"Thank you, Joe, but I did not kill him."

"Well--you know--it's right for you to say so, 'cos you'll have to plead not guilty. Polly, at our place never allows she's broke nothin', but the chinay and the pipkins have got a terrible way of committin' felo de se since she came to the Ship. She always sez she didn't do it--and right enough. No one in this free country is obliged to incriminate hisself. That's one of our glorious institootions."

"I really am guiltless," urged Mehetabel.

"Quite right you should say so. Pleased to hear it. But I don't know what the magistrates will say. Most folks here sez you did, and all the Punch-Bowl will swear it. They sez you tried to kill him wi' his own gun, but didn't succeed as you wished, so now you knocked him on the head effectual like, and tippled his dead body down into the kiln. He was an aggravatin' chap, was Bideabout, and deserved it. But that is not what I come here to say."

"And that was--"

"Well, now, I mustn't say it too loud. I just slipped in when nobody was about, as I don't want it to be known as I am here. The master and I settled it between us."

"Settled what, Joe?"

"You see he always had a wonderful liking for you, and so had I.

He was agin you marryin' the Broom-Squire, but the missus would have it so. Now he's goyne to send me with the trap to Portsmouth.

He's had orders for it from a gent as be comin' wild fowl shootin'

in the Moor. So my notion is I'll drive by here in the dark, and you'll be ready, and come along wi' me, takin' the baby with you, and I'll whip you off to Portsmouth, and nobody a penny the wiser.

I've got a married sister there--got a bit o' a shop, and I'll take you to her, and if you don't mind a bit o' nonsense, I'll say you're my wife and that's my baby. Then you can stay there till all is quiet. I've a notion as Master Colpus be comin' to arrest you to-morrow, and that would be comical games. If you will come along wi' me, and let me pass you off as I sed, then you can lie hid till the wind has changed. It's a beautiful plan. I talked it over with the master, and he's agreeable; and as to money--well, he put ten pound into my hand for you, and there's ten pound of my wages I've saved and hid in the thatchin' of the cow-stall, and have no use for; that's twenty pound, and will keep you and the baby goin' for a while, and when that's done I daresay there'll be more to be had."

"I thank you, Joe," began Mehetabel, the tears rising in her eyes.

He cut her short. "The master don't want Polly to know nothin' of it. Polly's been able to get the mastery in the house. She's got the keys, and she's a'most got the old chap under lock. But it's my experience as fellows when they get old get won'erful artful, and master may be under her thumb in most things, but not all. And he don't fancy the notion of your bein' hanged. So he gave me that ten pound, and when I sed I'd drive you away afore the constable had you--why, he just about jumped out o' his breeches wi' joy.

Only the first thing he said then was--'Not a word to Polly.'"

"Indeed, Joe, you are good, but I cannot go."

"You must go either to Portsmouth or to Gorlmyn. You may be a free woman, but in hidin', or go to prison. There's the choice before you. And if you b'ain't a fool, I know what you will take."

"I do not think it right to run away."

"Of course if you killed him deliberate, then you may go cheerful like and be hanged for it. But wot I sez and most sez, but they in the Punch-Bowl, is that it worn't deliberate. It were done under aggravatin' sarcumstances. The squatters in the Bowl, they have another tale. They say you tried to shoot him, and then to poison him, and he lived in fear of his life of you, and then you knocked him head over heels into the kiln, and served him right is my doctrine, and I respect you for it. But then--wot our people in Thursley sez is that it'll give the place a bad name if you're hung on Hind Head. They've had three hangin' there already, along of wot they did to your father. And to have another might damage the character of the place. I don't fancy myself that farmer Colpus is mighty keen on havin' you hanged."

"I shall not be hanged when I am guiltless," said Mehetabel.

"My dear," answered the hostler, "it all depends not on what you are but on what the judge and jury think, and that depends on the lawyers what they say in their harangues. There's chances in all these things, and the chance may be as you does get found guilty and be sentenced to the gallows. It might cause an unpleasantness here, and that you would wish to avoid I don't say as even Sally Rocliffe and Thomas would like it, for you're related to them somehow, and I'm quite sure as Thursley villagers won't like it, cos we've all respected you and have held Jonas cheap. And why we should have you hanged becos he's dead--that's unanswerable I say.

So I'll be round after dark and drive you to Portsmouth."

"No, indeed, I cannot go."

"You can think it over. What about the little chap, the baby? If they hang you, that'll be wuss for him than it was for you. For you it were bad enough, because you had three men hanged all along of your father, but for he it'll be far more serious when he goes about the world as the chap as had his mother hanged."

"Joe, you insist on imagining the worst. It cannot, it will not, be that I shall be condemned when guiltless."

"If I was you I'd make sure I wasn't ketched," urged the hostler.

"You may be quite certain that the master will do what he can for you; but I must say this, he is that under Polly that you can't depend on him. There was old Clutch on the day when Bideabout was killed. The doctor came from Gorlmyn on a hired hoss, and it was the gray mare from the inn there. Well, old Clutch seems to have found it out, and with his nose he lifted the latch of the stable-door and got out, and trotted away after the doctor or the old mare all the road to Gorlmyn; and he's there now in a field with the mare, as affable as can be with her. It's the way of old horses--and what, then, can you expect of old men? Polly can lead the master where she pleases."

"Joe," said Mehetabel, "I cannot accept your kind offer. Do not think me ungrateful. I am touched to the heart. But I will not attempt to run away; that would at once be taken as a token that I was guilty and was afraid of the consequences. I will not do anything to give occasion for such a thought. I am not guilty, and will act as an innocent person would."

"You may please yourself," answered Filmer; "but if you don't go, I shall think you what I never thought you before--a fool."

"I cannot help it; I must do what is right," said Mehetabel. "But I shall never forget your kindness, Joe, at a time when there are very few who are friends to me."

The period of Mehetabel's illness had been a trying one for the infant, and its health, never strong, had suffered. Happily, the little children who came to the Dame's school were ready and suitable nurses for it. A child can amuse and distract a babe from its woes in an exceptional manner, and all the little pupils were eager to escape A B C by acting as nurses.

When the mother was better, the babe also recovered; but it was, at best, a puny, frail creature.

Mehetabel was aware how feeble a life was that which depended on her, but would not admit it to herself. She could not endure to have the delicacy of the child animadverted upon. She found excuses for its tears, explanations of its diminutive size, a reason for every doubtful sign--only not the right one. She knew she was deceiving herself, but clung to the one hope that filled her--that she might live for her child, and her child might live for her.

The human heart must have hope. That is as necessary to its thriving as sun is to the flowers. If it were not for the spring before it, the flower-root would rot in the ground, the tree canker at the core; the bird would speed south never to return; the insect would not retreat under shelter in the rain; the dormouse would not hibernate, the ant collect its stores, the bee its honey. There could be no life without expectation; and a life without hope in man or woman is that of a machine--not even that of an animal. Hope is the mainspring of every activity; it is the spur to all undertakings; it is the buttress to every building; it runs in all youthful blood; it gives buoyancy to every young heart and vivacity to every brain. Mehetabel had hope in her now. She had no thought for herself save how it concerned her child. In that child her hope was incorporate.

CHAPTER XLVI.

A TROUBLED HOPE.

On the following morning Mehetabel was conveyed to Godalming, and was brought before the magistrates, assembled in Petty Sessions.

She was in no great anxiety. She knew that she was innocent, and had a childlike, childish confidence that innocence must come out clear of stain, and then only guilt suffered punishment.

Before the magistrates this confidence of hers was rudely shaken.

The evidence that would be produced against her at the Assizes was gone through in rough, as is always done in these cases, and the charge assumed a gravity of complexion that astonished and abashed her. That she and her husband had not lived in harmony was shown; also that he had asserted that she had attempted his life with his gun; that he was afraid she would poison him if trusted with the opiate prescribed for him when suffering from a wound. It was further shown by Giles Cheel and Sarah Rocliffe that she had threatened to kill her husband with a stone, if not that actually used by her, and then on the table, by one so like it as to be hardly distinguishable from it. This threat had been made on the night previous to the death of Jonas Kink. On the morning she had encountered her husband in a field belonging to Mr. James Colpus, and this meeting had been witnessed by the owner of the field, his daughter, and by Thomas Rocliffe and his son Samuel.

Colpus and his daughter had been at some distance in the rear, but Thomas and Samuel Rocliffe had been close by, in a sunken lane; they had witnessed the meeting from a distance of under thirty feet, and were so concealed by the hedge of holly and the bank as to render it improbable that they were visible to the accused.

James Colpus had seen that an altercation took place between Mehetabel and the deceased, but was at too great a distance to hear what was said. He had seen Mehetabel raise her hand, holding something--what he could not say--and threaten Jonas with it; but he did not actually see her strike him, because at that moment he turned to say something to his daughter.

The evidence of Mary Colpus was to much the same effect. The accused had come to her to ask for a situation vacant in the house, through the dismissal of Julia Caesar, her former servant, and some difficulty had been raised as to her reception, on account of the doubt whether Jonas would allow his wife to go out into service, and leave her home. She and her father had promised to consider the matter, and with this understanding Mehetabel had left, carrying her babe.

Just as she reached the further extremity of the field, she met her husband, Jonas Kink, who came up over the stile, out of the lane, apparently unobserved by Mehetabel; for, when he addressed her, she started, drew back, and thrust her hand into her pocket and pulled out a stone. With this she threatened to strike him; but whether she carried her threat into execution, or what occasioned his fall, she could not say, owing to her father having spoken to her at that moment, and she had diverted her eyes from the two in the field to him. When next she looked Jonas had disappeared, and she heard the shouts, and saw the faces of Thomas and Samuel Rocliffe, as they came through the hedge.

Then her father said, "Something has happened!" and started running. She had followed at a distance, and seen the Rocliffes pull the body of Jonas Kink out of the kiln and lay it on the grass.

Thomas Rocliffe was a stupid man, and the magistrates had difficulty with him. They managed, however, to extract from him the following statement on oath:

He and Samuel had been out the previous day along with Jonas Kink, his brother-in-law, looking for Mehetabel. Jonas thought she had gone to the Moor and had drowned herself, and he had said he did not care "such a won'erful sight whether she had."

On the morning of the event of his death Jonas had come to them, and asked them to attend him again, and from what he, Thomas, had heard from Sally, he said that they had been on the wrong scent the night before, and that they must look for Matabel nigher, in or about the village.

They had gone together, he and Jonas and his son Samuel, along the lane that led out of the Punch-Bowl towards Thursley by the Colpus's farm, and as they went along, in the deep lane, Jonas shouted out that he saw his wife coming along. Then he, Thomas and Samuel looked, and they also saw her. She was walking very slow, and "was cuddlin' the baby," and did not seem to know where she was going, for she went wide of the stile. Then Jonas got up over the stile, and told Thomas and Samuel to bide where they were till he called them. They did so, and saw him address Mehetabel, who was surprised when he spoke to her, and then something was said between them, and she pulled a big stone out of her pocket and raised it over her head, stepped forward, "sharp-like," and knocked him with it, on the head, so that he fell like one struck with a thunderbolt, backward into the kiln.