“Oh, aye, I’ll tell her,” returned the farmer; “but you see, Mr. Kensett, after what you’ve bin a sayin’, I dunno as how I shall go to the court to-morrow. The lad was a bit hardly dealt by when at Stoke Ferry—so I’ve bin given to understand, and maybe it ’ud be just as well for me to keep away, and not mix myself up in the business any more than I can help. I’ll consult Patty. She’s got a lot more common sense than falls to the share o’ most wimmen. I’ll ask her what she thinks about it.”
“Certainly, it would be your best course, and act in accordance with her wishes.”
“Aye, may be it would. Well, I never! It’s altogether a most extraordinary affair—most extraordinary.”
“Not more extraordinary than true, Ashbrook.”
“No, sir, I aint a sayin’ as it be; but it gets over me, and no mistake.”
After some further conversation, the worthy agriculturist bade the magistrate good-bye, and took his departure.
Alf Purvis, whose rather chequered career we have already sketched up to the period of his arrest, was about as unprincipled a young scoundrel as it is well possible to conceive. The earlier years of his life were in a measure enshrouded in mystery. He was supposed to be the illegitimate offspring of some gentleman, but this was only surmise. When an infant he had been left on the doorstep of a house in the immediate neighbourhood of Saltwich. He was picked up by a farmer’s man and taken to the workhouse. His mother, who had abandoned him, was tracked by a village constable, arrested, and brought before Mr. Kensett.
She told her tale to him, said that the father of the child was his (Mr. Kensett’s) son, who had gone to sea. The magistrate, who had every reason for believing that the story the woman told was a true one, connived at her escape, extracting from her before she left his presence a promise that she would never trouble him again. He gave her a sum of money and heard no more of her, had never seen her from that time up to the present hour. Such are the leading particulars connected with the life and parentage of the accomplished London thief.
When the hour arrived for the prisoner’s examination Mr. Sutherland was brought into court by Todd, the detective. His genteel appearance, good looks, and winning manners made him more an object of pity than execration. The women who were present in the court were unanimous in their opinion that he was an innocent person, or, if not quite innocent that he had been the dupe of more designing persons, for it was not possible to believe that so genteel and well-conducted a young fellow could be a callous offender against the laws of his country.
Mr. Todd and the other members of the police force were, however, of a different opinion. The London detective gave him a bad character, not that he had ever been in trouble before, but he was said to have been a suspected person for a considerable period while residing in the metropolis. It is needless to observe that they were not very far out in their reckoning.