Bladys of the Stewponey by Sabine Baring-Gould

Bladys was at the Rock Tavern, along with Mother Norris. She had perceived at once, when fastened on by Mrs Onion, that the woman and her son would make an attempt to secure her, so as to get possession of the case of jewellery.

To escape from Shrewsbury as quickly as possible was her obvious course, and on her return to the Wool Pack, she at once engaged a post-boy and horses. To the old woman, she explained the urgency of the case; George Stracey's beast was to be left in the inn stable till called for. She discharged the account in full, and departed the same night. After her arrival at the Rock Tavern, her mind sank into inactivity. A sort of moral paralysis took possession of her, much as before the marriage. She was aware that she was brought into association with undesirable persons; that the old woman was vicious at heart, and a source of evil in her neighbourhood; and that the relation in which Nan stood to George Stracey was not respectable. She was, moreover, alive to the fact that the man was a notorious highwayman, and that the Rock Tavern was a meeting-place for bad characters. But whither could she go? She was without friends. The only house on which she had any claim was the Stewponey Inn, and to that she neither could nor would return.