Hugh would not have ventured to ask him to his house on Sunday night, when no refreshments could be procured, had he not remembered a small pig (Anglicé stone bottle) of real mountain dew, which he had carried with him when he went to Arnstead, and which had lain unopened in one of his boxes.
Miss Talbot received her lodger with more show of pleasure than usual, for he came lapped in the odour of the deacon’s sanctity. But she was considerably alarmed and beyond measure shocked when the policeman called and requested to see him. Sally had rushed in to her mistress in dismay.
“Please’m, there’s a pleaceman wants Mr. Sutherland. Oh! lor’m!”
“Well, go and let Mr. Sutherland know, you stupid girl,” answered her mistress, trembling.
“Oh! lor’m!” was all Sally’s reply, as she vanished to bear the awful tidings to Hugh.
“He can’t have been housebreaking already,” said Miss Talbot to herself, as she confessed afterwards. “But it may be forgery or embezzlement. I told the poor deluded young man that the way of transgressors was hard.”
“Please, sir, you’re wanted, sir,” said Sally, out of breath, and pale as her Sunday apron.
“Who wants me?” asked Hugh.
“Please, sir, the pleaceman, sir,” answered Sally, and burst into tears.
Hugh was perfectly bewildered by the girl’s behaviour, and said in a tone of surprise: