go by. The woman who cut
her stays was 'a tall, black, swarthy woman.' Scarrat said 'that was
not Mrs. Wells,' which was fair on Scarrat's part. Elizabeth described
the two young women as being one fair, the other dark; so Scarrat
swore. Wintlebury, her old master, and several others corroborated.

If these accounts by Mrs. Myers, Mrs. Woodward, Scarrat, Wintlebury,
and others are trustworthy, then Elizabeth Canning's narrative is
true, for she found the two girls, the tall, swarthy woman, the hay,
and the broken water-pitcher, and almost everything else that she had
mentioned on January 29, at Mother Wells's house when it was visited
on February 1. But we must remember that most accounts of what
Elizabeth said on January 29 and on January 31 are fifteen months
after date, and are biassed on both sides.

To Mother Wells's the girl was taken on February 1, in what a company!
The coach, or cab, was crammed full, some friends walked, several
curious citizens rode, and, when Elizabeth arrived at the house, Nash,
the butler, and other busybodies had made a descent on it. The officer
with the warrant was already there. Lyon, Aldridge, and Hague were
with Nash in a cab, and were met by others 'riding hard,' who had
seized the people found at Mrs. Wells's. There was a rabble of persons
on foot and on horse about the door.

On entering the doorway the parlour was to your left, the house
staircase in front of you, on your right the kitchen, at the further
end thereof was a door, and, when that was opened, a flight of stairs
led to a long slit of a loft which, Nash later declared, did not
answer to Elizabeth's description, especially as there was hay, and,
before Chitty, Elizabeth had mentioned none. There was a filthy kind
of bed, on which now slept a labourer and his wife, Fortune and Judith
Natus. Nash kept talking about the hay, and one Adamson rode to meet
Elizabeth, and came back saying that she said there _was_ hay. By
Adamson's account he only asked her, 'What kind of place was it?' and
she said, 'A wild kind of place with hay in it,' as in the neighbours'
version of her first narrative. Mrs. Myers, who was in the coach,
corroborated Adamson.

The point of the sceptics was that till Adamson rode back to her on
her way to Wells's house she had never mentioned hay. They argued that
Adamson had asked her, 'Was there hay in the room?' and that she,
taking the hint, had said 'Yes!' By May 1754 Adamson and Mrs. Myers,
who