ADVENTURE
“We had not got far ere a young fellow, apparently a farm labourer, climbed over a stile from the fields and joined us. He was going to a doctor, he said, having had his face, some weeks before, injured by a young colt kicking him. His head and features were bandaged so that none of them were visible save his eyes and part of his nose. He walked with us, saying very little, but occasionally sighing, as it were from pain. I observed the young woman glancing rather doubtfully towards him once or twice, but neither she nor the constable seemed to know him. After walking some distance the constable said he had to turn off across the fields to a village. He said I might as well go that way, as the foot-road led into the highway again, and was short, and there was an excellent tap at the alehouse, where we could have a glass after his business was done. I agreed, for I wanted to see something more of this affair, and so I stepped with him, his prisoner and the young man into the meadow path—for the doctor also lived in the same village. We soon arrived at the little hamlet, and the constable inquired of a servant in livery if ‘his worship was at home?’ He said he was, and would be downstairs in half an hour, and if he called then he would see him. We stepped into a public-house, where we ordered some ale, and having found it very good, we began to smoke, having agreed, very philosophically, that it was the wisest course to ‘take things easy in this world.’ We had sat thus, blowing clouds for some time, and going on our second jug, when the young fellow came suddenly into the room, and, gazing wildly, said a person was killed just above, and the doctor had sent him for a constable, as they could not remove the body until one arrived. Our active officer then, potent with ale and authority, laid down his pipe, pulled out his staff, took a huge draught, and charging me with the custody of the young woman until he returned, he hurried out of the house. As soon as he had disappeared, ‘here,’ I said to the girl, ‘take that shilling, and run for thy life.’ The young fellow at the same time pulled his bandages from his face; a scream burst from the girl, he laid hold of her arm, I turned to light my pipe, and the next instant they had disappeared.
COMEDY
“I then hastened up the lane in search of my active coadjutor, and met him coming down swearing and brandishing his truncheon. ‘Where are they?’ I said, for I thought I would be first to speak. ‘Where are who?’ he asked. ‘Why, the young Jezebel and that fellow with the broken face?’ ‘Where are they?’ he repeated, glaring on me with his two eyes as if they would have started from his head. ‘Where are they indeed?’ ‘You should know where one is at least.’ I then told him in a somewhat deprecatory tone that I only turned to the fire to light my pipe, and when I looked again both the prisoner and the young fellow were gone. ‘But you are not gone at any rate,’ he replied, ‘nor shall you go until you have been before the justice to answer for this. Come along,’ he said, ‘come this way,’ and laying hold of my arm he reconducted me to the public-house. ‘Heigh ho!’ I said, ‘there’s nothing like taking things easy in this world.’ ‘D—— you and your easiness,’ he retorted, quite in a rage. ‘John,’ he said to the ostler, ‘go and see if his worship is astir yet.’ John went and soon returned with the tidings that his worship was ready. My conductor and I then went into the house of the worthy magistrate, and were met at the yard door by a set of very cross pointers and cock-dogs, who made a general assault as if they would have worried us, and myself in particular, for they seemed to have barked at my companion before. We were conducted into a neat carpeted room, where his worship and his clerk sat at a table covered with a green cloth, and with a number of papers and writing materials before them. ‘Well, Andrew!’ said the clerk, a thin, sallow, suspicious-eyed person, ‘where is the girl you were to bring?’ ‘Lord bless his honour’s worship,’ said Andrew, ‘I left her in the custody of this here man and he’s let her run away.’ ‘How’s that?’ asked his worship, lifting his eyes from a Game Act which he had been perusing. ‘How did you come to leave her in this man’s charge? I thought you had been an older officer and had known better than that,’ said his worship. ‘May it please your honour’s worship,’ said the constable, ‘I and the girl and this said prisoner, that now is, were awaiting your honour’s pleasure in the public-house, when in comes a scurvy knave as was awaiting o’ the doctor, and said there was a person killed, and I must go and take charge of the corpse; so I ’livered my prisoner into this man’s charge, and away I went arter the corpse; and when I had run up and down o’ the village, I couldn’t hear o’ no corpse, and the people all, sir, a-laughing at me.’
MORE COMEDY
“The clerk gave a dark and bitter frown, the magistrate burst out a-laughing heartily. I laughed too; in fact, I had been doing so in my mind during the last half-hour. When the clerk saw the magistrate laugh, he was suddenly taken with a like cheerful sensation, and we all three laughed at Andrew, the constable.
“‘Well,’ said the magistrate, composing himself, ‘but what has this to do with the loss of your prisoner?’
“‘Please your honour,’ said the constable, ‘before I went a-seeking the corpse I left the girl in charge of this man, who I believe is no better than he should be, and when I came back he tells me the girl had run away whilst he was a-lighting of his pipe.’
“‘How was it?’ asked the magistrate, addressing me. I gave him the same account I had given the constable, on which he first, and then the clerk, burst into a hearty fit of laughter, to the apparently sore puzzlement of the constable, who seemed to think it a subject of too grave a nature for such light entertainment.
“‘What do you wish his worship to do in this case, Andrew?’ asked the clerk.