‘But what has all this to do with the girl you kidnapped?’

‘Ain’t I a-tellin’ on ye as fast as I can?  When my pore gal dropped off to sleep, I sez to Polly Onion, “Poll,” I sez, “to-morrow mornin’ I’ll pop every-think as ain’t popped a’ready, an’ I’ll leave you the money to see arter ‘er, an’ I’ll start for Carnarvon on Shanks’s pony.  I knows a good many on the road,” sez I, “as won’t let Jokin’ Meg want for a crust and a sup, an’ when I gits to Carnarvon I’ll ax ’er aunt to bury ’er (she sells fish, ‘er aunt does,"’ sez I, “and she’s got a pot o’ money), an’ then I’ll see the parson or the sexton or somebody,” sez I, “an’ I’ll tell ’em I’ve got a darter in London as is goin’ to die, a Carnarvon gal by family, an’ I’ll tell ’im she ain’t never bin married, an’ then they’ll bury ’er where she can smell the primroses and the vi’lets.”  That’s what I sez to Poll Onion, an’ then Poll she begins to pipe, an’ sez, “Oh Meg, Meg, ain’t I a Carnarvon gal too?  The likes o’ us ain’t a-goin’ to grow no vi’lets an’ snowdrops in Llanbeblig churchyard.”  An’ I sez to her, “What a d—­d fool you are, Poll!  You never ’adn’t a gal as went wrong through you a-drinkin’, else you’d never say that.  If the parson sez to me, ‘Is your darter a vargin-maid?’ d’ye think I shall say, ’Oh no, parson’?  I’ll swear she is a vargin-maid on all the Bibles in all the churches in Wales.”  That’s jis’ what I sez to Polly Onion, God forgi’e me.  An’ Poll sez, “The parson’ll be sure to send you to hell, Meg, if you do that air.”  An’ I sez, “So he may, then, but I shall do it, no fear.”  That’s what I sez to Poll Onion (she’s downstairs at this werry moment a-warmin’ me a drop o’ beer); it was ’er as showed you upstairs, cuss ‘er for a fool; an’ she can tell you the same thing as I’m a-tellin’ on you.’

’But what about her you kidnapped?  Tell me all about it, or it will be worse for you.’

‘Ain’t I a-tellin’ you as fast as I can?  Off to Carnarvon I goes, an’ every futt o’ the way I walks—­Lor’ bless your soul, there worn’t a better pair o’ pins nowheres than Meg Gudgeon’s then, afore the water got in ’em an’ bust ’em; an’ I got to Llanbeblig churchyard early one mornin’, and there I seed the pore half-sharp gal.  So you see I comed by ’er ’onest enough, p’leaceman, though she worn’t ezzackly my own darter.’

‘Well, well,’ I said; ‘go on.’

’Yes, it’s all very well to say “go on,” p’leaceman; but if you’d got as much water in your legs as I’ve got in mine, an’ if you’d got no more wind in your bellows than I’ve got in mine, you’d find it none so easy to go on.’

‘What was she doing in the churchyard?’

‘Well, p’leaceman, I’m tellin’ you the truth, s’elp me Bob!  I was a-lookin’ over the graves to see if I could find a nice comfortable place for my pore gal, an’ all at once I heered a kind o’ sobbin’ as would a’ made me die o’ fright if it ‘adn’t a’ bin broad daylight, an’ then I see a gal a-layin’ flat on a grave an’ cryin’, an’ when I got up to her I seed as she wur covered with mud, an’ I seed as she wur a-starvin’.’