place. Squire told me all about her. Fine woman, sir; doosed fine woman; sh'perior woman, too, monstrous sh'perior. She's going to put me on the track of the beggars; took me up the hill, and showed me the way to one of their haunts, that she did, sir. Though in these parts one wouldn't have thought she'd ha' dared do it, sir; and she wouldn't if I hadn't known how to wheedle it out of her!"
"You don't think, general, she was playing you false?"
"False! No, sir. I'm too devilish artful to be played tricks with. No, sir; I played with her as a cat plays with a mouse, and led her on so far that she can't draw back. She is to come and see me at my quarters in Rye next market day, and—" he paused a moment to give a fatuous chuckle—"if I don't get out of her afore she goes back every damned thing I want to know, why, sir, then they may court-martial me for a d-d-d-damned blunderer, sir!"
Tregenna did not attempt to betray further his doubts as to the woman's good faith. But when they reached the angle where the road through the village was joined by the by-road
