"Not a bit of it, mother. I've come to help you, but shift him along a bit out of the heat, and then we'll settle what to do with him." To him I added, "Understand, sergeant, any attempt to fight or fly, and your neck will be wrung like a cockerel's." Then laying down my gun I pulled out the tines and shifted him along the lintel till he was out of danger. The woman, whose fierce determination never faltered, jammed the pikel in again and kept him trapped. I went to the door and saw Mistress Waynflete standing by Sultan's head, and the proud beauty arching his neck in his joy at finding his mistress near him. I beckoned her. "An old acquaintance, in a fix. Come in!" said I, and introduced her to the strange scene. "The sergeant, madam," I went on, "and he has been plucked like a brand from the burning." She took in the scene, judged what had happened, and then gathered up the child, who had ceased crying out of curiosity, and mothered the little one so sweetly that the red-elbowed woman cried out hearty thanks. In brief the story, as collected later from the mother and child, was that the sergeant had ridden up and asked for a meal. After he had had some bread and cheese and ale, he had taken advantage of the alewife's absence to ask the child where mother kept her money, and, receiving no answer, had twisted the poor little one's arm until in her terror and agony she had told him of the secret hole in the chimney where the money was kept in a coarse brown mug. The child's cry had brought the mother running back with the pikel, snatched up on the way, and she, taking him at unawares with the mug in his hand, had darted at him and luckily caught him round the neck, and pinned him against the fireplace as I had found him. Let him go she dared not, for she was alone except for the child, and but for my arrival he would have roasted right enough till he was helpless. As it was the skirts of his coat were smouldering, and he had only just escaped serious injury. In fact, although smarting sore, he was so little damaged that after tearing away the burnt tails, he collected himself and tried to bam me. "Master Wheatman," he began, "I call upon you in the King's name to aid and assist me. This woman's tale is all a lie. The mug was on the chimney-top for anyone to see, and I only took it down to examine it, being struck with its appearance." "Also in the King's name, Master Sergeant," was my reply, "I propose to have you handed over to the nearest justice as a rogue and vagabond." "And you shall explain why you are here with your--" I should have strangled him if his foul tongue had wagged one word of insult, and he saw it in my eyes. He stopped, and his face showed that he had discovered the secret. "The sergeant recognizes you again, Molly," said I lightly. "Bammed and beaten by a damned yokel?" he burst out. "Ten thousand devils! Where were my eyes yesterday?" In his anger he began to strain at his steel cravat.