"You don't know nothing about it, Mr. Ludlow. I do. The crowner gave me a hint, and I'm acting on it. 'Don't you go and let that man escape,' says his worship to me: 'it'll be at your peril if you do.' '_I'll_ see to him, your worship,' says I. And I be a-doing of it." But it was hardly likely that the coroner meant Abel Crew to be confined in that precious lock-up for a whole week. One night there was bad enough. At least, I did not think he meant it; but the crowd, to judge by their comments, seemed divided on the point. "The shortest way to settle the question will be to ask the coroner, old Jones," said I, turning back to the Silver Bear. "Come along." "You'd be clever to catch him, Master Johnny," roared out old Jones after me. "His worship jumped into his gig; it was a-waiting for him when he come out; and his clerk druv him off at a slapping pace." It was true. The coroner was gone; and old Jones had it all his own way; for, you see, none of us liked to interfere with the edict of an official gentleman who held sway in the county and sat on dead people. Abel Crew accepted the alternative meekly. "Any way, you must allow me to go home first to lock my house up, and to see to one or two other little matters," said he. "Not unless you goes under my own eyes," retorted old Jones. "You might be for destroying your stock o' pills for fear they should bear evidence again' you, Abel Crew." "My pills are, of all things, what I would not destroy," said Abel. "They would bear testimony for me, instead of against me, for they are harmless." So Abel Crew hobbled to his cottage on the common, attended by old Jones and a tail of followers. Arrived there, he attended the first thing to his scalded foot, dressing it with some of his own ointment. Then he secured some bread and butter, not knowing what the accommodation at the lock-up might be in the shape of eatables, and changed his handsome quaint suit of clothes for those he wore every day. After that, he was escorted back to the lock-up. Now, the lock-up was in Piefinch Cut, nearly opposite to Dovey the blacksmith's. The Squire remembered the time when the lock-up stood alone; when Piefinch Cut had no more houses in it than Piefinch Lane now has; but since then Piefinch Cut had been built upon and inhabited; houses touching even the sacred walls of the lock-up. A tape-and-cotton and sweetstuff shop supported it on one side, and a small pork-butcher's on the other. Pettipher's drug shop, should anybody be curious on the point, was next to the tape-and-cotton mart.