and maybe a bit to spare. I can't
leave my ironing."

"Am I to get it myself, then?" asked the gaoler, sulkily.

"Just as you please," was the calm response. "I'm not going."

Wastborowe took up his jug, went to the cellar, and drew the ale for
himself, in a meek, subdued style, very different indeed from the aspect
which he wore to his prisoners. He had scarcely left the door when a
shrill voice summoned him to--

"Come back and shut the door, thou blundering dizzard! When will men
ever have a bit of sense?"

The gaoler came back to shut the door, and then, returning to the
dungeon, showed himself so excessively surly and overbearing, that his
men whispered to one another that "he'd been having it out with his
mistress." Before he recovered his equanimity, the Bailiff returned and
called him into the courtyard.

"Hearken, Wastborowe: how many of these have you now in ward? Well-nigh
all, methinks." And he read over the list. "Elizabeth Wood, Christian
Hare, Rose Fletcher, Joan Kent, Agnes Stanley, Margaret Simson, Robert
Purcas, Agnes Silverside, John Johnson, Elizabeth Foulkes."

"Got 'em all save that last," said Wastborowe, "Who is she? I know not
the name. By the same token, what didst with the babe? There were
three of Johnson's children, and one in arms."

"Left it wi' Jane Hiltoft," said the gaoler, gruffly. "I didn't want it
screeching here."

The Bailiff nodded. "Maybe she can tell us who this woman is," said he;
and stepping a little nearer the porter's lodge, he summoned the
porter's wife.

Mrs Hiltoft came to the door with little Helen Johnson in her arms.
"Well, I don't know," said she. "I'll tell you what: you'd best ask
Audrey Wastborowe; she's a bit of a gossip, and I reckon she knows
everybody in Colchester, by name and face, if no more. She'll tell you
if anybody can."

The Bailiff stepped across the court, and rapped at the gaoler's door.
He was desired by a rather shrill voice to come in. He just opened the
door about an inch, and spoke through it.

"Audrey, do you know aught of one Elizabeth Foulkes?"

"Liz'beth What-did-you-say?" inquired Mrs Wastborowe, hastily drying
her arms on her apron, and coming forward.

"Elizabeth Foulkes," repeated the Bailiff.

"What, yon lass o' Clere's the clothier? Oh, ay, you'll find her in
Balcon Lane, at the Magpie. A tall, well-favoured young maid she is--
might be a princess, to look at her. What's she been doing, now?"

"