Davie laughed with a funny chuckle he had, but which sounded awful just then. "Aye," he said, "I was in his cart, lassie. He gied me a lift to kirk or market--I will not be telling you which!" "Davie," I said, "tell us. This is no joke. Harry Foster is very likely murdered, and all the Queen's mail bags stolen. A lot of money, too, they were sending from the bank in East Dene to the new branch in Bewick." I knew that because I had heard my father say so. Never did I see a man so struck as Davie. His face changed. The smirk went out of it and it got gray, with the blue watery eyes sticking out like gooseberries. "Then if I cannot prove myself innocent," he gasped, "they will hang me!" "But you are innocent?" I asked eagerly. "Ow, aye, I'm innocent enough," he said, "but can I prove it? That's the question. There's a deal of folk, gameys and landlords, that has a pick at poor Davie for the odd snare he sets and the big trout he catches. They'll nail this on him. And I gave Harry two--three flies newly busked," he added hoarsely, "did you hear?..." "Yes," said I, "I saw them. They were stuck in the leather apron." Davie the poacher raised his hand in a discouraged way to his throat, and caressed it, feeling it all over like a doctor. "I'm feared ye are no worth thrippens!" he said. CHAPTER III THE BAILIFF OF DEEP MOAT GRANGE Elsie and I cheered him. We would do what we could, which truly was not much. But I promised for my father, whose arm was long in Breckonside, reaching even to East Dene. But the poacher shook his head. "They will get poor Davie. They will put it on him--yes, for sure!" he repeated. And from this melancholy conclusion he was not to be moved. He offered to accompany us, however, on our search. And we were glad of that, because we were quite sure of his innocence, and in such a case the difference between three and two is very marked. Two--you want to get close and rub shoulders. Three--you scatter and look the hedges. We advised the old poacher to hide his fish under the bank, but, with strong good sense, he refused. "They are Davie's only chance," he said, "there is just a possibility that there's an _aw-li-bi_ in Davie's basket. He has catched so many of the Duke's trouts since three this morning that they may think he could not have had the time to make away with a man as well!" As we went he told us how the post carrier had got his mail bags from Miss Harbishaw, the postmistress, on the stroke of three that morning--"a fearful sight in a mustard-coloured flannel dressing gown"--Davie described her. He himself had stood on the other side of the mail cart, well in the shadow. "Did Miss Harbishaw see you?" Elsie asked. "Well," said the poacher, "I would not just make so bold as to say. She might have seen my legs, mixed up with Bess's piebald stockings. But I keeped fairly quiet, not wanting her to spot the fishing basket on my back."