"Is that the right of it, Roger?" asked the gentleman.
"He said so, sir," he replied, "but he looks such a villainous tramp, and you know what lies they tell--why, look here!" He stooped and picked something from the ground. "He said he was hungry, and look at this!"
He held up my crown piece, which in the violence of my movements, I suppose, had sprung out of my tattered garment. I felt my cheeks flush hotly, and was stricken dumb in the face of this mute evidence giving me the lie. The girl gazed at me for a moment; then, her lip curling with disdain, she turned her back and walked up the path towards the house.
"Well, rascal?" said the gentleman sternly.
"It is mine, truly," I said. "But--"
"Go fetch the men," he said to the boy.
"As sure as I'm alive I'll commit you for a rogue and vagabond, for mendicancy and assault."
He drew his horse across the gate so that I could not escape, while the boy hastened to the house.
"You are a magistrate, sir," I ventured to say, "and sure 'tis not your custom to condemn your prisoners unheard."
"Adzooks, you teach me my duty?" he cried in a rage. "You insolent scoundrel!"