"Good morning, Mr. Haggard," she answered, but she did not stop.

That evening she called at the cottage where Joses lodged and handed
Mrs. Boam the knife done up in brown paper.

"Will you give this to Mr. Joses?" she said.

The woman's apron was to her lips, and over it her frightened eyes
peered at the girl.

"He's gone, Miss," she said.

The girl was surprised.

"Gone?" she said. "Where?"

The woman nibbled her apron.

"An hour since. The police come for him. I was makin' the tea."

That strange tide of Other-Consciousness overwhelmed the girl.

"Are you fond of him?" asked the Voice that used her as an instrument.

The woman with the streaming eyes nodded over her apron.

"Our Jenny love him," she said.

End of Part I

Battle

It was Old Mat who was responsible for the arrest of Joses on the charge
of incendiarism.

"I got to do me duty by the pore feller," he said quietly. "And will do,
de we. Same as the Psalmist says. It's _because_ you love 'em you got to
chastise of 'em. Only where it is," he ended disconsolately, "don't
somehow seem as they _can_ understand."

The evidence was fairly plain. Jerry had marked the tout late in the
afternoon of the day in question cross the Paddock Close from the public
park and enter the shed half an hour before the fire; while Monkey
Brand, coming off the hill, on his return from the hunt, swore he had
seen him emerge from the shed as flames broke from the thatched roof.

It was growing dusk at the time, and the distance was considerable, as
Monkey admitted, but the little jockey maintained with restraint and
emphasis that "he'd know that waddle anywheres."

Joses did not go undefended. The fact of his value to the Three J's, if
ever in doubt, was proved beyond question by the fact that they paid a
good lawyer to keep him out of gaol. And it was notorious that the Three
J's never gave except where they got.

Indeed, one of the funniest scenes at the trial took place when Ikey
Aaronsohnn, who it was said had returned post-haste from America for the
purpose, Jaggers, and Chukkers, one after the other, stood up in the
witness-box and gave evidence solemnly as to the character of the
accused.

"Of course we know he _has_ made a little mistake in the past, pore
chap," said Jaggers, who looked like an austere Stiggins. "But he's a
_good_ man for all that."

"A hopeful penitent," suggested the prosecuting counsel.

"There's 'ope for all, I 'op