but he fumbled at the
gate by the lodge and let them get close to him. He broke away,
however, and was running gallantly through the village with the lads
hard after him, when down the road came the ample figure of Mrs.
Mugford, who put down the pitcher that she was carrying and stood right
in his way with her arms spread out wide. She did not dare actually to
stop him, but she so confused him that in another few yards the drummer
and fifer had caught him each by an arm. The idiot cowered abject and
trembling between them, and the three stood panting and breathless,
while Mrs. Mugford exhorted at the top of her voice,

"Hold mun fast, brave lads!" she cried, in a very different tone from
that which she had lately used to the soldiers. "Hold mun fast!
That's the man you was a looking vor. Hold mun fast! Ah, you roog; so
we've a got 'ee at last, and now 'twill be the jail and the gallows for
'ee sure enough. Ah! you may whine and guggle, but you won't get away,
not this time." Her cries brought every woman in the village to the
spot, and solemn were the shakings of heads, and loud the recalling of
prophecies that vengeance would soon overtake the wicked. Then the
serjeant came elbowing his way through the crowd, and was hailed
instantly, like the drummer and fifer, by Mrs. Mugford. "That's the
man you'm a looking for, maister; and a bad one he is. Hold mun fast,
maister; and don't let mun go, whatever."

"Ah! you know him, do you?" said the serjeant. "Well, you can trust
him to me. Take the drum off his back, my lads, and bring him along."

But the idiot seemed hardly able to move; and they had not taken him
far, with the women and children still crowding round them, when they
were stopped by his mother, who came hastening up the road and planted
herself full in the way.

"Now, then," she said sharply, "what be doing to that boy? Let mun go.
He's a done no harm to you, I reckon. Let mun go, I tell 'ee. Where
be taking mun?"

"Come, mistress, no hard words," answered the serjeant. "I don't know
who you are; but this young man's my prisoner, and to Kingstoke he must
go tonight, and before the nearest justice to-morrow for a deserter."

"Ay, and for a witch too and you with mun," yelled Mrs. Fry; and she
and the women with her raised a howl that was not pleasant to hear.
"She's awitched my boy," screamed Mrs. Fry high above the rest. "She's
a witch and she ought to be drownded in the river."

The se