The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken

crew, seemingly; used to carrying stuff to the king hisself."
    "Never?" exclaimed Captain Hughes, much shocked. "His Majesty buying smuggled goods?"
    "Well," said Dido, "I did hear tell as how the corkscrew tax was perishing stiff; I dessay old Jamie Three had better things to spend his dibs on. Corkscrews! O' course! What a muttonhead I am!"
    "I beg your pardon, my child?"
    "Nothing, nothing, Cap!" said Dido hastily. "Anyways, if they really takes run stuff to the palace, and all the nobs, they're the boys for us, ain't they? You want your Dispatch taken to the Fust Lord o' the Admiralty—like as not he's on their list for Organ-Grinders' Oil, or his lady for Parsley Face-powder."
    Captain Hughes was obliged to admit the truth of this.
    "Well, child—see what you think of them. Do not decide rashly. If you have the least doubt as to their trustworthiness, take no further steps. So much is at stake! Confound it—I wish my head did not still ache so—I wish
I were not so wretchedly weak."
    "Now don't you fret, Cap! If I can, I'll get one o' the chaps to come back here and have a word with you."
    "Do. Do, child."
    "I'm to meet 'em in Petworth at four this afternoon. Come to think," said Dido, rubbing her brow, "how did old Gusset know so quick that I was a-going to Petworth?"
    Captain Hughes supposed the doctor must have mentioned it. "Does he not spend most of his time at Tegleaze Manor?"
    "He does, that's so," agreed Dido thoughtfully. "Jist the same, I wish news didn't travel quite so fast in this back end."
    When she had given the Captain his dinner she went out to the shippen and untethered the gray coach horse.
    "Come on, Dapple, you lucky old prancer; you're a-going to have a change of air."
    Since she had been giving him his feed all week and fomenting his lame leg with potato poultices under Mr. Firkin's directions, the gray had become very friendly. He allowed Dido to put on his bridle and to strap a sheepskin for a saddle around his barrel-shaped middle; she climbed on him from the water butt; and they were off. It was no use waving to Mr. Firkin, sitting with his flock on the hillside, but Toby wagged his tail amicably as they passed, and so Dido waved to
him;
her spirits rose as she left the quiet little valley.
    "Pity the weather's so misty and murky; but anyways, it's grand to be out on the gad."

5
    Mr. Firkin had told Dido the way to Petworth. It lay first down an exceedingly steep descent, on which Dapple slipped and snorted and complained. Above, on the misty hillside, dim glimpses of great beech trees in their flaming autumn colors reminded Dido of red-hot embers hidden under a layer of ash.
    The road then twisted through a small hamlet of thatched houses: Duncton, Mr. Firkin had said this was called.
    Growing accustomed, by the time they had left Duncton behind them, to Dapples jerky trot, Dido rode thoughtfully, pondering about Tegleaze Manor and its inhabitants, and the conversation they had overheard between Colonel FitzPickwick and the other man, Miles Tuggles. What was all
that
about? Tobit had not seemed in the least interested, but Tobit was a totty-headed boy; wouldn't know an egg from an Austrian. Nonetheless it seemed to Dido that the talk concerned Tobit quite closely; so far as
she
could make out, Colonel FitzPickwick had
been doing something he shouldn't, stealing money from old Lady Tegleaze, like as not—maybe that was why she never had any luck with her bets, maybe they never got placed at all—and the other fellow had got to know about this somehow and was threatening FitzPickwick with exposure unless he assisted in some further plot, something connected with Tobit and Lady Tegleaze and the Manor itself—otherwise, what had he meant by "the place—to get all this I'd commit any crime?"
    Havey-cavey goings-on, without any doubt whatsoever.
    Goodness knows what all the talk of rollers and motive power was about; but at that point the two men had been a little farther away; perhaps