“At the filling of the fifth glass at eleven o’clock, when nearly the whole village was asleep, Nicholas Harris, who seemed wonderfully sober, considering, stopped and whispered to a couple of men in one of the corners behind the store; and in another half-hour, the said two shadowy figures came up to find the bailiff sitting in the pool of water in front of the store, and shaking his head in a melancholy way at his companion.
“‘I don’t feel well,’ said Harris, ‘and I’m going home. P’r’aps you’ll help that gentleman up to the King’s Arms.’
“Neither of the new-comers spoke; but each seized the bailiff by an arm, and tried to lift him to his feet. But he did not wish to be lifted to his feet, and sat him down down again in the wettest spot of the road, making the water fly from beneath him, while every fresh attempt to get him away was fiercely resisted.
“‘Have you got it?’ whispered one of the new-comers.
“‘Ay, lad!’ said the other, ‘it’s all right.’
“‘Then fetch a barrow.’
“The man spoken to came back in a few minutes with a wheelbarrow, by which time the bailiff seemed in a state of hopeless collapse, and remained so when he was lifted into the barrow.
“‘Don’t laugh,’ whispered one man, as the other held his sides, and stamped about with mirth to see his companion’s efforts to get the man in position; for he could not sit down, nor lie down, nor be placed side-wise, nor cross-wise. Once he was in a sitting posture and, seizing the handles, the man started the barrow; but the bailiff slowly slid down till his head rested upon the barrow wheel, and ground against it.
“‘P’raps you’ll wheel him yourself next time,’ he grumbled to his laughing companion, who stepped up, seized the collapsed bailiff round the waist and carried him in his arms as easily as a girl would a baby, till he reached the village public-house, where he deposited his burden beneath a cart-shed, while the peace of that end of the village was disturbed no more until morning.
“The next day there was an application to the magistrates respecting the nets that had been stolen from Pengelly’s store—nets of the value of over one handled pounds having been removed no one knew whither Nicholas Harris was taken to task as having been seen with the bailiff drinking; but he swore truthfully that he had gone home directly he quitted him, and had lain in bed all the next day with a fearful headache. His nets were amongst those taken. Pengelly proved that the other nets taken were Trecarn’s and Pollard’s, but upon their places being searched only some old nets were found, while the men themselves had put off for sea early that morning. However upon the magistrate learning from Pengelly that every article belonging to him was safe upon his premises, he turned round and whispered for some little time to his clerk, and it was arranged that the case should be adjourned.