"More," she said. "He'll not take the road. There's a bridle way over the top of Pen Hill that goes down into Wells by the bishop's palace. It's three miles shorter, if you've a horse that can climb. He's ridden it before. He told me so, the day he drove me — he said it was a pity the gig couldn't manage it." She drew a breath. "I'm coming with you."
"No."
"She will not open the door to you."
"I'm her brother."
"Yes," said Miss Penhallow. "That's why."
He looked at her. She looked back at him steadily, and after a moment he found that he had nothing to say to it.
"Your uncle—"
"My uncle is in the vestry with Mr. Fothergill, having a fit of the vapours and threatening to sue the Church of England. He'll keep." She glanced at Thrale. "Your friend might go and sit with him. Someone ought to write down what was said in the church before everybody starts remembering it differently. And someone ought to find the nearest magistrate."
"Sir Walter Hensleigh, at Coombe," said the ostler unexpectedly, from under the mare's belly. "Four miles. He's a hard man on poachers, but he's honest."
Thrale caught Jasper's eye. Jasper nodded.
"Go," he said. "Take the church first — get Fothergill's account, and the clerk's, in writing. Then Hensleigh. Tell him everything." He hesitated. "Tell him the name."
"Are you sure?" said Thrale quietly. "Once it's said to a magistrate—"