d 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.
Thereupon he and Samuel came up over the hedge, and he jumped
into the kiln, and found his brother-in-law there, huddled up
in a heap at the bottom. He managed with difficulty to heave
him out, and with the assistance of Samuel and Farmer Colpus, to
lay him on the grass, when all three supposed he was dead.

When they said that he was dead, then Mehetabel laughed.

This statement produced a commotion in court. Then they got a
hurdle or gate, he couldn't say which, and lifted the deceased
on to it and carried him home to the Punch-Bowl. It was only when
they laid him on the bed that they saw he still breathed. They
heard him groan,