"I'm damned!" says he, and flops down into his elbow-chair.
In the end we made a treaty, to Mr. Wicks' great disgust, who saw the guineas slipping through his fingers. Nor was the Squire less aggrieved at first, for clearly it was to him a matter of high concern to nail Swift Nicks.
"What's it matter to us here who's got a crown on his head in London?" he said. "London-folk care nothing for us, and we care nothing for them. But Swift Nicks does matter. We want him hung. No man about here with any sense bothers about your politics except at election-times, when politics means a belly full of beer and a fist full of guineas for every damned tinker and tallow-chandler in Leicester. But you, or that bloody villain Swift Nicks, if you a'nt him, keep us sweating-cold o' nights. To hell with your politics! Hang me Swift Nicks!"
The terms of our treaty were that I was to remain peaceably and make a night of it, giving my word to make no attempt to escape or harm anyone. In the meantime, and at my proper charges, a post was to be sent to fetch Nance Lousely and her father to give evidence on my behalf.
"DEAR GHOSTIE,"--I wrote to her,--"I am in great danger because a red-nosed man vows I am Swift Nicks. I want you and your father to come and prove he's an ass. If you don't I am to be hung on a gibbet at a place called the Copt Oak, and I can't abide gibbets, for they are cold and draughty. So come at once, my brave Nance!--Your friend,
"O. W."
A groom was fetched and I told him how to get to Job Lousely's. He was well mounted from the Squire's stables and set off. However quickly he did his business, it would be many hours before he could be back. So I settled down to make a night of it.
There was nothing original in the Squire's way of making a night of it. The parson who had been in at the death and who, during the settlement of my affair, had been busy in the stables, now joined us at dinner. He was but lately come from Cambridge, at which seat of learning the chief books appeared to be Bracken's Farriery and Gibson on the Diseases of Horses, with Hoyle's Whist as lighter reading for leisured hours. He was a hard rider, a hard swearer, and a hard drinker, and, after being double japanned, as he called it, by a friendly bishop, had been pitchforked by the Squire into a neighbouring parish of three hundred a year in order that the Squire's dogs and hounds, and the game and poachers on the estate, might have the benefit of his ministrations. He had, however, sense enough to buy good sermons. "At any rate the women tell me they're good," explained the Squire. "I can't say for myself, for Joe's a reasonable cock, and always shuts up as soon as I wake up."
The Bow Street runner, Mr. Wicks, and the red-nosed petty constable of the hundred, who answered to the name of Pinkie Yates, were of the party. I ate little and drank less, but the others emptied the bottles at a great pace and were soon hot with drink. One brew, which the huntsmen quaffed with much zest, I insisted, out of regard for my stomach, on passing round untouched, though the men of law took their share like heroes, and, I doubt not, thought they were for once hob-nobbing with the gods. The manner of it was thus. The parson drew from his pocket a leg of the fox they had killed that day, and, stinking, filthy, and bloody as it was, squeezed and stirred it in a four-handled tyg of claret. In this evil compound the Squire solemnly gave us the huntsman's toast: