“Sir, that is a secret,” replied our wise man, “which I shall trust to you alone;” and he whispered into Mr. Marshal’s ear that his information came from Bampfylde the second, king of the gipsies.
Mr. Marshal instantly burst into laughter; then composing himself said, “My good sir, I am really glad that you have proceeded no farther in this business; and that no one in Hereford, beside myself, knows that you were on the point of swearing examinations against a man on the evidence of Bampfylde the second, king of the gipsies{1}. My dear sir, it would be a standing joke against you to the end of your days. A grave man, like Mr. Hill; and a verger too! Why, you would be the laughing-stock of Hereford!”
Now Mr. Marshal well knew the character of the man to whom he was talking, who, above all things on earth, dreaded to be laughed at. Mr. Hill coloured all over his face, and, pushing back his wig by way of settling it, showed that he blushed not only all over his face but all over his head.
{Footnote 1: The following passage is an extract from Colquhoun, On the Police of the Metropolis, page 69:—“An instance of mischievous credulity, occasioned by consulting this impostor” (a man calling himself an astrologer, who practised long in the Curtain-road, Shoreditch, London; and who is said, in conjunction with his associates, to have made near 300£. a year by practising on the credulity of the lower order of the people), “fell lately under the review of a police magistrate. A person, having property stolen from him, went to consult the conjuror respecting the thief; who having described something like the person of a man whom he suspected, his credulity and folly so far got the better of his reason and reflection, as to induce him, upon the authority of this impostor, actually to charge his neighbour with a felony, and to cause him to be apprehended. The magistrate settled the matter by discharging the prisoner, reprimanding the accuser severely, and ordering the conjuror to be taken into custody, according to law, as a rogue and a vagabond.”}
“Why, Mr. Marshal, sir,” said he, “as to my being laughed at, it is what I did not look for, being as there are some men in Hereford to whom I have mentioned that hole in the cathedral, who have thought it no laughing matter, and who have been precisely of my own opinion thereupon.”
“But did you tell these gentlemen that you had been consulting the king of the gipsies?”
“No, sir, no: I can’t say that I did.”
“Then I advise you, keep your own counsel, as I will.”
Mr. Hill, whose imagination wavered between the hole in the cathedral and his rick of bark on one side, and between his rick of bark and his dog Jowler on the other, now began to talk of the dog, and now of the rick of bark; and when he had exhausted all he had to say upon these subjects, Mr. Marshal gently pulled him towards the window, and putting a spy-glass into his hand, bid him look towards his own tan-yard, and tell him what he saw. To his great surprise, Mr. Hill saw his rick of bark rebuilt.
“Why, it was not there last night,” exclaimed he, rubbing his eyes. “Why, some conjuror must have done this.”