“A' am, Dandy, a stanch friend to Sir Thomas.”
“Bekaise I know that if you aren't a friend of his, he is a friend of yours. I was playin' a tune the other day in the hall, and while I was in the very middle of it I heard him say—'We must have Counsellor Crackenfudge on the bench;' and so they had a long palaver about you, and the whole thing ended by Sir Thomas getting the tough old Captain to promise you his support, with some great man that they called custos rascalorum.”
“A' am obliged to Sir Thomas,” said Crackenfudge, “and a' know he is a true friend of mine.”
“Ay, but will you now be a true friend to him, plaise your honor, counsellor?”
“To be sure I will, Dandy, my fine fellow.”
“Well, then, listen—Sir Thomas got me put into this strange fellow's sarvice, in ordher to ah—ahem—why, you see in ordher to keep an eye upon him—and, what do you think? but he's jist afther tellin' me that he doesn't think he'll have any further occasion for my sarvices.”
“Well, a' think that looks suspicious—it's an elopement, there's no doubt about it.”
“I think so, your honor; although I am myself completely in the dark about it, any farther than this, counsellor—listen, now—I know the road they're goin', for I heard it by accident—they'll be off, too, immediately. Now, if your honor is a true friend to Sir Thomas, you'll take a post chaise and start off a little before them upon the Isaas road. You know that by going before them, they never can suspect that you're followin' them. I'll remain here to watch their motions, and while you keep before them, I'll keep after them, so that it will be the very sorra if they escape us both. Whisper, counsellor, your honor—I'm in Sir Thomas's pay. Isn't that enough? but I want assistance, and if you're his friend, as you say, you will be guided by me and sarve him.”
Crackenfudge felt elated; he thought of the magistracy, of his privilege to sit on the bench in all the plenitude of official authority; he reflected that he could commit mendicants, impostors, vagrants, and vagabonds of all descriptions, and that he would be entitled to the solemn and reverential designation of “Your worship.” Here, then, was an opening. The very object for which he came to town was accomplished—that is to say, the securing to himself the magistracy through the important services rendered to Sir Thomas Gourlay.
It occurred to him, we admit, that as it must have been evidently a case of elopement, it might be his duty to have the parties arrested, until at least the parent of the lady could be apprised of the circumstances. There was, however, about Crackenfudge a wholesome regard for what is termed a whole skin, and as he had been, through the key-hole of the Mitre inn, a witness of certain scintillations and flashes that lit up the eye of this most mysterious stranger, he did not conceive that such steps and his own personal safety were compatible. In the meantime, he saw that there was an air of sincerity and anxiety about Dandy Dulcimer, which he could impute to nothing but a wish, if possible, to make a lasting friend of Sir Thomas, by enabling him to trace his daughter.