"Oh, indeed!" said the Squire, a little flurried at this unexpected event, "but ... but there is no inn fitting to harbour her ladyship in this village, and ... and ... if her ladyship would honour me and my poor house..."
"I thank you, sir, but her ladyship only remains here for an hour or so, and has despatched me to you on an important errand which brooks of no delay."
"I am entirely at her ladyship's service."
"Lady Patience was on her way from Stretton Hall, your Honour," continued Bathurst, imperturbably, "when her coach was stopped on the Heath, not very far from here, and her jewels, money, and also certain valuable papers were stolen from her."
Squire West hemmed and hawed, and fidgeted in his chair: the matter seemed, strangely enough, to be causing him more annoyance than surprise.
"Dear! dear!" he muttered deprecatingly.
"Her ladyship has written out her formal plaint," said Jack, laying the paper before his Honour. "She has sent her coach on to Wirksworth, but thought your Honour's help here at Brassington would be more useful in capturing the rogue."
"Aye!" murmured the worthy Squire, still somewhat doubtfully, and with a frown of perplexity on his jovial face. "We certainly have a posse of soldiers—a dozen or so at most—quartered in the village just now, but..."
"But what, your Honour?"
"But to be frank with you, sir, I fear me that 'twill be no good. An I mistake not, 'tis another exploit of that rascal, Beau Brocade, and the rogue is so cunning! ... Ah!" he added with a sigh, "we shall have no peace in this district until we've laid him by the heels."