The man seemed surprised and confounded, but the lady beckoned him to come nearer, saying, "I have no time for explanations, Master Wilton, but you must do what you can, without endangering Mr. Woodhall's safety or character, to turn this matter so as to keep him here till to-morrow morning. In a word, the Duke of Norfolk sent him here with me to keep him out of the way. There was some quarrel going on between him and another gentleman in the house, and his grace wished for time to arrange it before he returned."
"I understand, my lady, I understand," replied the man, with a shrewd nod of the head. "His grace gave me a little hint, but I did not think of turning this to profit. I'll manage it--I'll manage it;" and away he went at full speed, saying to himself, "My lady does not mind having a handsome young man to sit with her all the evening, I'll warrant, though they do say she has refused scores of great people already. Well, there is no knowing womankind."
He overtook Ralph walking quietly up the street between two constables, who, from an intimation of his strength which they had received, kept at a respectful distance from him. A number of men and boys were following close, with an unnecessary trot; and all the servants of the Duke of Norfolk who had come into the town with the carriage, as well as one or two of Lady Danvers's people, and several women and children, were following at a little distance behind. Wilton made his way through all these, and kept close to Ralph's elbow till the party reached the justice room (which was, in fact, the parlor of an alehouse), and the prisoner was ushered into the presence of the justices, who, booted and spurred, and with their horse-whips in their hands, were just ready to leave the place and ride away. There were three of them present, and two of them looked exceedingly rueful at the prospect of more business. The third, however, rapping out a great oath, cast himself back into his seat again, and laid his horse-whip on the table. "Why, what the devil--" he said; "you look like a gentleman, sir. Curse my buttons, what have they brought you here for?"
"They can best tell you themselves, sir," answered Ralph.
"Don't you go to church? Don't you take the sacrament? Are you a Nonconformist?"
"I go to church and take the sacrament as regularly as most men," replied Ralph; "and Nonconformist I am none, having been brought up in the Church of England from my infancy."
"Pox take you, then," exclaimed the choleric fat justice, addressing the constables, "what did you bring this gentleman here for?"
The charge was then formally made by the two constables, imputing to Ralph the serious offenses of riot and an attempt to rescue their prisoner.
Ralph, in reply, simply told his own story. The constables, he said, had treated an old and respectable-looking man with unjustifiable harshness, irritated apparently by the great crowd which had collected. One of them had even struck him with his staff, upon the pretense of making him go on, although he was offering no resistance.
"That was Doggett, I'll be sworn," said the magistrate, looking round at his two brethren; "I told you all Doggett would get us into a scrape some day."