answer my questions. The truth or the jail, my girl."

"Yow," sniffed Jane, "he'd snap yow in two like a carrot. Bed's best
place for 'im. He's as wet as thatch with his silly jacking."

"Jane," said I, "never mind me. I'm neither dry enough nor drunk enough
to go to bed yet. Captain here wants to ask you and Moll some questions.
Stop clacking at me like a hen at a weasel and listen to him."

Jane went through the ordeal easily, appealing to 'Moll' for verification
at every turn, and so cleverly that the latter appeared to be as much
under examination as herself. Moreover, Jane stood square in the
firelight, but so as to keep 'Moll' shouldered behind the chimney in
comparative gloom. They'd been churning all afternoon, the butter was
there to be seen, stacks of it; nobody had been in or near the yard; the
gate had never clicked once, and nobody could open it without being heard
in the dairy. She overwhelmed the dragoon with her demonstrations of the
impossibility of anybody coming up the yard without her or 'Moll' knowing
it.

"That's all right, Jane," said I, at length. "But she could easily have
got into the house or into the stables without you or Moll seeing her.
Let's all have a look for her. Unless she's small enough to creep into a
rat-hole, we'll soon find her."

Sergeant Radford--to give him his name and rank, which I learned later
from Jack Dobson--agreed to this, and in my joy at knowing that the ordeal
was over, I was on the point of forgetting that I was drunk till I caught
the clear eyes of madam fixed in warning on me. Jane acted as leader to
the two dragoons in overhauling the barns and stabling, while 'Moll,' the