My poor mistress! and poor Miss Carmel! I liked 'em, do ye understand?
Liked 'em--and I do feel the trouble at the house, I do." His distress was so genuine that Hexford was inclined to let him go; but Sweetwater with a cock of his keen eye put in his word and held the coachman where he was.
"The old gal is telling me all about it," muttered this sly, adaptable fellow.

He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly very close together.

"Not touch her?
See here!" Sweetwater had his arm round the filly's neck and was looking straight into her fiery and intelligent eye.

"Shall I pass her story on ?" he asked, with a magnetic smile at the astonished coachman, which not only softened him but seemed to give the watchful Hexford quite a new idea of this gawky interloper.
"You'll oblige _me_ if you can put her knowledge into words," the man Zadok declared, with one fascinated eye on the horse and the other on the house where he evidently felt that his presence was wanted.

"She was out that night, and I know it, as any coachman would know, who doesn't come home stone drunk.