"Bless you, sir!" replied the man, "I've no more to do with it than you have. How I got the cut on the head, you see, is because these fellows came in upon me suddenly, and I not liking to be overhauled in that manner, knocked one of them down. That's the truth, I don't deny. But as for running the goods, I had no more to do with that than my boy Johnny. I wonder they didn't take him too; for you know well enough, sir, that he had nearly gone to sea without any papers aboard, poor boy. D----, they may do what they like; they can't do any harm to me; for I had no hand in running anything, so they can't make out that I had."
"But you should have submitted when you knew that there was a warrant out against you," replied Charles.
"I never knew anything of that," replied the man "Nobody ever told me of a warrant. But, just when I was stooping down over the chest in the window of the hovel, in comes one of these lubbers, and catches me by the jacket, telling me I must come away with him: so, you see, sir, I turned round and knocked him over, as was natural. Nobody can say much against that, I think."
"Come, come, Charles," cried Sir Francis, "wo must investigate this matter in a more orderly way. I don't see the use of waiting longer for the lawyer. We might remain here all day."
Charles endeavoured to persuade his father that it would be better to give a little more time for the arrival of the person who had been sent for; but, as a natural consequence, Sir Francis persisted in proceeding immediately, and had opened the business, when it was again interrupted by the entrance of no less a personage than Captain Long, with his pigtail at full length, accompanied by Everard Morrison, both bearing evident marks of having lost no time by the road.
As soon as Charles saw his old schoolfellow, he advanced and shook hands with him cordially; and though Everard received his friend's greeting with his usual calm and thoughtful demeanour, to those who knew him well it would have been evident, from the placid smile that hung upon his lip and the momentary brightness of his eye, that his meeting with Charles Tyrrell, and the warm reception given him by the baronet's son, were grateful to every feeling of his heart.
Charles instantly led him up to Sir Francis Tyrrell, and introduced him in form as the friend and schoolfellow whom he had so often heard him mention, and the baronet behaved by no means ill upon the occasion, treating the young lawyer with politeness and respect, and saying, that though, of course, the business must be conducted by the magistrates, and they could not suffer any one to interfere, yet it was extremely right and proper that a solicitor should be present on behalf of the prisoners, to watch the proceedings against them.
"Depend upon it, Sir Francis," replied young Morrison, "I should never dream of interfering but where the law authorized me, and my duty compelled me as the prisoners' solicitor. You will permit me, of course, to have a few minutes' conversation with them, in the first place?"
Sir Francis Tyrrell and the other justices consented, and Morrison, approaching the group at the other end of the room, bade the officers and others retire a little, in a tone which, though calm and quiet, was obeyed at once, and then spoke to each of the prisoners in turn for a single instant, seeming to ask none of them more than two questions, to which some of them answered briefly, some merely by a shrug of the shoulders or a shake of the head.
Towards the end of this proceeding, Captain Long walked up to one of the prisoners and spoke to him; when the young officer, who had remained standing by the magistrates, exclaimed, "Come, come, Master Longly, none of that. We know you well of old, and I am very sure that, if right were done, you would be standing among them yourself."