“Yes, he did, but not then.  It was before, when Flower wanted to get up, and crawl away and tell, because he thought he was going to die.”

“Was Flower down there with him?”

“Yes; that’s why Monty and I put the big stones on the trap.”

“Flower was hert, wesn’t he, shot in the beck, I think?”

“Yes; he crawled in all the way on his hands and knees, and I helped his wife to tie him up, till the doctor came, the morning that I found Steevy.”

“How do you know thet Stephen wes esleep?”

“He told me.”

“Deminus Coristinus, mulier non est responsibilis pro suis ectionibus.  Facit et credit omnia qua mendet enimel mertuus.”

“Eheu domine!” replied the lawyer; “sic est vita dolorosa!”

Bridesdale was all lit up, and the front door was open to receive the soaked wayfarers, but no one could be induced to enter it.  Mr. Terry asked Honoria to leave his dry suit and a pair of shoes at the kitchen, when he would take them to the carriage house, and change there.  The lawyer and the detective had no dry suit, so Mrs. Carruthers brought them some of her husband’s clothes, and two umbrellas, under which they carried their bundles, wrapped in bath towels, to the place the veteran had chosen.  While the three drawing-room guests stripped, rubbed themselves down with the grateful towels, and put on their dry attire, the kitchen filled up with the humid and steaming Pilgrims, Rufus, the idiot boy, and his mother.  Constable Rigby lodged his prisoner on some straw in an empty stall in the stable, and, producing a pair of handcuffs, which he had left there, secured him, fastening also a stall chain round one of his legs with a padlock.  The constable was severe, but he had lost two prisoners the previous day, had been abused by Sylvanus Pilgrim, and was very wet and tired.  To the credit of Sylvanus be it said, that he came out with Ben Toner’s clothes, and lent them to his elderly rival, and actually carried the corporal’s wet garments into the kitchens, there to hang with a large assortment of others, drying before the two stoves, in full blast for the purpose.  The gum coats had fairly protected the clothes of Matilda and Monty, but their feet needed reclothing, and it took some time to dry their heads.  Maguffin had taken off his wet things, and was asleep in the loft bed, keeping one ear open for the safekeeping of the colonel’s horses.  Tryphena and Tryphosa were both up; and into their hands Rufus consigned the dripping habiliments of their two admirers as well as his own, his fraternal relation allowing him to appear before the ladies of the kitchen in a long white garment with frills that had never been constructed for a man.  “Guess it ain’t the last time you’ll have to dry them clothes, gals,” said the sportive Rufus, skipping along in his frilled surplice, when Tryphena chased him out of the apartment with a sounding smack between the shoulders.