“Well, but it’s hard that my Anthony Thom’s to be beat, and get no redress!” exclaimed Mrs. Margerum, bursting into tears.
“Hush, woman! hush!” muttered Mr. Gallon, giving her a dig in the ribs with his elbow; adding, “ye mun de what it liar tells ye.”
“I’ll tell you what I can do,” continued Mr. Kebbel, after a pause. “They’ve got my old friend Mark Bull, the ex-Double-im-up-shire Super, into this force, and think him a great card. I’ll get him to go to Sir Moses about the matter; and if Mark finds we are all right about the cap, he’s the very man to put Mosey up to a prosecution, and then we shall make a rare harvest out of him,” Carrots rubbing his hands with glee at the idea of an action for a malicious prosecution.
“Ay, that’ll be the gam,” said Mr. Gallon, chuckling,—“that’ll be the gam; far better nor havin’ of him oop for the ‘sult.”
“I think so,” said Mr. Kebbel, “I think so; at all events I’ll consider the matter; and if I send Mark to Sir Moses, I’ll tell him to come round by your place and let you know what he does; but, in the meantime,” continued Kebbel, rising and addressing Mrs. Margerum earnestly, “don’t you answer any questions to anybody, and tell Anthony Thom to hold his tongue too, and I’ve no doubt Mr. Gallon and I’ll make it all right;” so saying, Mr. Kebbel shook hands with them both, and stalked on to his petty-sessional practice.
Gallon then coaxed Tippy Turn round, and, retracing his steps as far as Kimberley gate, paid the toll, and shot Mrs. Margerum out, telling her to make the best of her way back to the Rose and Crown, and stay there till he returned. Gallon then took the road to the right, leading on to the wide-extending Spankerley Downs; where, unharnessing Tippy Tom under lea of a secluded plantation, he produced a saddle and bridle from the back of the cart, which, putting on, he mounted the high-stepping white, and was presently among the coursers, the greatest man at the meeting, some of the yokels, indeed, taking him for Sir Harry Fuzball himself.
But when Mr. Mark Bull arrived at Sir Moses’s, things had taken another turn, for the Baronet, in breaking open what he thought was one of Mrs. Margerum’s boxes, had in reality got into Mr. Bankhead’s, where, finding his ticket of leave, he was availing himself of that worthy’s absence to look over the plate prior to dismissing him, and Sir Moses made so light of Anthony Thom’s adventure that the Super had his trouble for nothing. Thus the heads of the house—the Mr. and Mrs. in fact, were cleared out in one and the same day, by no means an unusual occurrence in an establishment, after which of course Sir Moses was so inundated with stories against them, that he almost resolved to imitate his great predecessor’s example and live at the Fox and Hounds Hotel at Hinton in future. To this place his mind was now more than ordinarily directed in consequence of the arrangements that were then making for the approaching Hunt Ball, to which long looked-for festival we will now request the company of the reader.