"Ay, and so I feels, sir. What with worry and the rheumatics I feel I be not long for this world. I’ve bin twisted up with it all winter, sir. Since I sold they artichokes to Squire Bastable I’ve bin as useless as an old hulk. In course, some folks might think me lucky having only one leg to get the rheumatics in; but chok’ it all, sir, the pain’s just as bad in the wooden leg as ’tis in t’other; ay, and worse, ’cos I can doctor my natural leg, whereas not all the surgeons of King Jarge hisself could do this old stump any good." "’Tis hard lines, indeed. But what’s been worrying you?" "Sit ye down, sir, and I’ll tell ’ee about it." *CHAPTER XV* *TAR AND FEATHERS* "Fust and foremost, sir," said Gumley, having lit his pipe, "my poor old moke is dead. Ah! he served me well for many a year, and carried tons and tons o’ garden stuff into Wynport. But now he’s gone, and if so be I can do any digging and planting this spring I’ll have no one to carry my vegetables to market." "’Twas old age, I suppose. He looked on his last legs when I saw him first on the Luscombe road six months ago." "No, sir, ’twarn’t old age. If he had been left alone he’d have lived to be as old as Methusalum. No, ’twarn’t old age, nor overwork neither." "What was it, then?" Gumley hesitated. He looked at the locked door and the shuttered window, got up and went to the back door, bending his head forward as if listening. Then he returned to his chair, and, between two puffs, said, under his breath— "’Twere p’ison, sir." "Poison!" "Ay, sir. Jerry—so I called him, sir—were sound as a ship’s bell one night, sir; next morning he were dead as mutton." "But how do you know ’twas poison?" "’Cos that very same day Comely was took bad and well-nigh went to glory, too. Where Comely goes, Gumley follers; my rheumatiz were very bad that day." "’Tis plain you’ve got enemies, Gumley. I’m sorry for you. Comely looks all right now, at any rate. We’ll see what we can do to get you a new donkey. But I mustn’t waste time. I’ll tell you what I’ve come for. Do you know where Sandy Cove is?" Gumley gave a start, and looked round the room again with that uneasy glance which had attracted Jack’s attention before. "Axing your pardon, sir, would ye say why and wherefore you want to know that?" "I don’t think I can—at all events, not yet. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m on the king’s business, and that will be enough for an old king’s man, eh, Gumley?" "True, sir, God save the king! All the same, I’d rather ye axed your question of some one else." "There is no one else. Come, Gumley, out with it. What is the mystery?" Gumley still hesitated. He scratched his poll, rubbed the dog’s head, stirred an imaginary fire with his wooden leg, and once more glanced uneasily at the window.