“Well, sir, it weren’t no manner of good to take the engine. She’s only one of them hand concerns, and last time we’d had her out to practice, she pumped back’ards like into the river instead of out of it. Joe Stiggs, him what looks after her, said he found he’d put the valves in the wrong way. Besides, it would have taken us best part of an hour to push her out there, there ain’t no regular road. And, what’s more, all the water out at Morlandson’s place was a well what ran dry every summer.”

“Then there was nothing to be done?” commented the Professor.

“Nothing whatsoever,” replied the landlord emphatically. “Mind, we didn’t know Morlandson was inside. We expected to find him running round outside chucking water at it from a bucket. However, off we goes, and as we gets close we catches the stink of it. Lord! I shan’t forget it in a hurry. It was like the smell what comes from the pits when they burns carcases when the foot-and-mouth’s about.