"Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky elephant.

The farmer commanded him to face about and finish.

"A see T'm Baak'll," the Bantam recommenced, and again the contortions of
a horrible wink were directed at Richard. The boy might well believe this
churl was lying, and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim--

"You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!"

The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment.

"I tell you," said Richard, "I put the lucifers there myself!"

The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to telegraph to the young
gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces that had been
given him, and that in the right place and at the right time he should
prove so. Why was he thus suspected? Why was he not understood?

"A thowt I see 'un, then," muttered the Bantam, trying a middle course.

This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, "Thought! Ye thought!
What d'ye mean? Speak out, and don't be thinkin'. Thought? What the
devil's that?"

"How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?" Richard put in.

"Thought!" the farmer bellowed louder. "Thought--Devil take ye, when ye
took ye oath on't. Hulloa! What are ye screwin' yer eye at Mr. Feverel
for?--I say, young gentleman, have you spoke to this chap before now?"

"I?" replied Richard. "I have not seen him before."

Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and glared his
doubts.

"Come," said he to the Bantam, "speak out, and ha' done wi't. Say what ye
saw, and none o' yer thoughts. Damn yer thoughts! Ye saw Tom Bakewell
fire that there rick!" The farmer pointed at some musk-pots in the
window. "What business ha' you to be a-thinkin'? You're a witness?
Thinkin' an't ev'dence. What'll ye say to morrow before magistrate! Mind!
what you says today, you'll stick by to-morrow."

Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on earth the young
gentleman meant he was at a loss to speculate. He could not believe that
the young gentleman wanted to be transported, but if he had been paid to
help that, why, he would. And considering that this day's evidence rather
bound him down to the morrow's, he determined, after much ploughing and
harrowing through obstinate shocks of hair, to be not altogether positive
as to the person. It is possible that he became thereby more a mansion of
truth than he previously had been; for the night, as he said, was so dark
that you could not see your hand bef