"Railing, sir, and insinuations will be found of no use here," he said, calmly. "Clerk, make good speed with those warrants! Oh! here is Wilson. Now, Wilson, look at the prisoner well, and tell me if you are sure that he is the person who assaulted you yesterday, and who led the miners when they burned your father's house in Cornwall. Look at him well!"
The young man, whom it may be remembered Sir Osborne Maurice had dispatched so unceremoniously over the wall of old Richard Heartley's garden, now advanced, and regarded the knight with a triumphant grin.
"Oh, ho! my brave bird, what! you're limed, are you?" he muttered; and then, turning to Sir Payan, "yes, your worship, 'tis he," he continued. "I'm ready to swear that 'twas he led the men that burned Pencriton House, and that threw me over the wall, because I struck old Heartley for calling your worship a usurping traitor and----"
But at that moment Longpole laid a grasp upon his collar that almost strangled him.
"You struck my father, did you?" exclaimed he; "then pray God to make all your bones as soft as whit-leather, for if they're but as crisp as buttered toast, I'll break every one in your skin!"
"Silence!" cried Sir Payan Wileton; "silence, Heartley! If your father has been struck, I will take care he shall have satisfaction."
"With your worship's good leave, I will take care of it myself," replied Longpole. "I never trust any one to give or to receive a drubbing for me. I like always to calculate my own quantity of crabstick."
"Silence!" said Sir Payan; "again I say, silence! My good Richard, I assure you, you shall be satisfied. Clerk, swear Wilson to the depositions he made. Oh! here is the Portingallo. Captain, is that the man you remember having seen in Cornwall when you were last there?"
"Yes, yes, el Pero! that was himself!" cried the captain; "I sawed him at the ale-house at Penzance with my own eye, when I went to fetch the cargo of coal."
"You mean of tin, captain," said Sir Payan.