At the moment when the unfortunate shepherd was being swung in mid-air, preparatory to his immersion in the water, one of the soldiers laughingly dragged away the coat which swathed poor Miggs's head and shoulders, and was near suffocating him.
"We don't want 'im to drown, do we?" he said, just as his comrades dropped the wretched man straight into the pond.
Immediately there was a loud cry from beadle and spectators,—
"Lud love us all! that bain't Beau Brocade!"
And one timid voice added,—
"Why! 'tis Jock Miggs, the shepherd!"
The beadle nearly had a fit of apoplectic rage. That cursed highwayman surely must be in league with the devil himself. The soldiers were gasping with astonishment, and staring open-mouthed at the dripping figure of Jock Miggs, who with unruffled stolidity was quietly struggling out of the water.
"Lordy! Lordy! these be 'mazing times," he muttered in his vague, fatalistic way as he shook himself dry in the sunshine, after the manner of his own woolly sheep-dog.
"Oho! ho! ha! ha! ha!" came in merry chorus from the crowd of village folk, "look at Jock Miggs, the highwayman!"
The soldiers, were absolutely speechless. Master Inch, the beadle, had said emphatically,—