“If he will answer a few questions, I will give him five shillings.  If he can find out for me what I want, I will give him five pounds.”

“Shouldn’t I do as well?  If you gi’ it he, it’s little out of it I shall see, but he coming home tipsy when it’s spent.  Ah, dear! it was a sad day for me when I first fell in with they play-goers!”

“Why should she not do it as well?” said Thurnall.  “Mrs. Barker, do you know anything of a person named Briggs—­John Briggs, the apothecary’s son, at Whitbury?”

She laughed a harsh bitter laugh.

“Know he? yes, and too much reason.  That was where it all begun, along of that play-going of he’s and my master’s.”

“Have you seen him lately?” asked Campbell, eagerly.

“I seen ’un?  I’d hit this water over the fellow, and all his play-acting merryandrews, if ever he sot a foot here!”

“But have you heard of him?”

“Ees—­” said she carelessly; “he’s round here now, I heard my master say, about the ’Delphy, with my master:  a drinking, I suppose.  No good, I’ll warrant.”

“My good woman,” said Campbell, panting for breath, “bring me face to face with that man, and I’ll put a five-pound note in your hand there and then.”

“Five pounds is a sight to me:  but it’s a sight more than the sight of he’s worth,” said she suspiciously again.

“That’s the gentleman’s concern,” said Tom.  “The money’s yours.  I suppose you know the worth of it by now?”

“Ees, none better.  But I don’t want he to get hold of it; he’s made away with enough already;” and she began to think.

“Curiously impassive people, we Wessex worthies, when we are a little ground down with trouble.  You must give her time, and she will do our work.  She wants the money, but she is long past being excited at the prospect of it.”

“What’s that you’re whispering?” asked she sharply.

Campbell stamped with impatience.

“You don’t trust us yet, eh?—­then, there!” and he took five sovereigns from his pocket, and tossed them on the table.  “There’s your money!  I trust you to do the work, as you’ve been paid beforehand.”

She caught up the gold, rang every piece on the table to see if it was sound; and then—­

“Sally, you go down with these gentlemen to the Jonson’s Head, and if he ben’t there, go to the Fighting Cocks; and if he ben’t there, go to the Duke of Wellington; and tell he there’s two gentlemen has heard of his poetry, and wants to hear ’un excite.  And then you give he a glass of liquor, and praise up his nonsense, and he’ll tell you all he knows, and a sight more.  Gi’ un plenty to drink.  It’ll be a saving and a charity, for if he don’t get it out of you, he will out of me.”

And she returned doggedly to her washing.

“Can’t I do anything for you?” asked Tom, whose heart always yearned over a Berkshire soul.  “I have plenty of friends down at Whitbury still.”