"Prowling about my place, after midnight, with a couple of strange blackguards."
"There ain't so much harm in that, as I knows of."
"Who were the men, Sam?"
"Who was the men?"
"Yes;—who were they?"
"Just friends of mine, Mr. Fenwick. I shan't say no more about 'em. You've got me, and you've smashed my arm, and now what is it you're a-going to do with me? I ain't done no harm,—only just walked about, like."
To tell the truth, our friend the parson did not quite know what he meant to do with the Tartar he had caught. There were reasons which made him very unwilling to hand over Sam Brattle to the village constable. Sam had a mother and sister who were among the Vicar's first favourites in the parish; and though old Jacob Brattle, the father, was not so great a favourite, and was a man whom the Squire, his landlord, held in great disfavour, Mr. Fenwick would desire, if possible, to spare the family. And of Sam, himself, he had had high hopes, though those hopes, for the last eighteen months had been becoming fainter and fainter. Upon the whole, he was much averse to knocking up the groom, the only man who lived on the parsonage except himself, and dragging Sam into the village. "I wish I knew," he said, "what you and your friends were going to do. I hardly think it has come to that with you, that you'd try to break into the house and cut our throats."
"We warn't after no breaking in, nor no cutting of throats, Mr. Fenwick. We warn't indeed!"
"What shall you do with yourself, to-night, if I let you off?"
"Just go home to father's, sir; not a foot else, s'help me."