mon for Sunday, and actually no one told him till eventide !

The Bow-Street men had come in one of those now antiquated yellow chariot chaises, which since railway days, have become well nigh as scarce as that showy coach in which the titled dames, heralded by retainers, drove up to the grand entrance of Compton Whynyates, or those huge wains which a century and a half ago conveyed the bride and her dowry to the bridegroom's home. The horses had been unharnessed, and thus the vehicle stood on the triangular piece of green before the door of the Plough. A group of Elleringaytonians had congregated on the threshold of the hostelry, ready to look daggers at, and execute vengeance on, the unusual visitants, who by some authority or another, had come to force away the young squire.

Here they come! One on either side, and Inglis in the midst. The surly, cross-grained fellow in the rough coat has triumphantly hold of one end of the manacle, whilst the other is mysteriously locked upon James'

wrist. An undertoned conversation takes place, and as they come nearer and nearer, the words grow fewer, and the voices softer. The prisoner looks haggard and distressed, but he holds up his head, and the conscious spirit of innocence imprints his countenance.

"My good friends," said Inglis, "I am innocent of this dreadful accusation."

"I hav'nt no doubt upon it, whatsomever," ironically observed the shorter, and at the same time giving a familiar wink to that unsophisticated personage, Farmer Fallow.

Fallow felt wrath, and so did the man of spokes and felloes, and so did Shears, and several others who had congregated; and the thought did glance in the generous bosom of Fallow, as to whether it was not expedient to lift his ponderous fist, and make the wraprascal wallow in the mire; and the thought did obtrude itself on the inward reasonings of that stout yeoman, as to whether he and his neighbours should not at once rescue the young squire, and expel vi et armis those repulsive men whose presumption was shielded under the protecting wing of autho

rity. But then a moment's reflection told Fallow such would be a violation of the law, and-and then there were the penalties of such interference, and these would doubtless be inflicted in severity and destruction. The will was there, but not the daring.

Whatever might have been the previous prejudices of the villagers against the new occupants of the Hall, and whatever were their predilections for the old possessors, whom they had displaced, they now in the period of afflictive distress, were ready to evince their sympathy for the young squire in his misfortunes. And even laughing, jeering, censorious Shears, who had talked so much about the cheeper and the horse-pond douché, when he looked into Inglis' face and there read so much agony, he felt within him the emotions of better feelings, and when he was growing lachrymose, he turned from the scene. villagers with all their narrowed understandings and obscure prejudices, were men. They could feel and sympathize, and joy and sorrow; and if the tenor of an artless and unsophisticated life had rendered them but dull and

VOL. III.

G

The

unenlightened peasants, they were purer patriots, more natural, more uncorrupted personages than those official, urbane strangers, whose cunning address, low craftiness, and dissimulative adroitness had been acquired amongst the iniquitous associations of a metropolitan life.

The prisoner and his apprehenders stepped into the vehicle, the horses resolutely threw themselves into their harness, the yellow wheels flew round, and in a few moments Inglis and his official companions were hid by the first turning of the lane. The village quidnuncs strained their eyes so long as they could see the chaise, then entered hip and thigh into the subject of the strange scene, and at length, and as all such little groups dissolve, one by one, each sought his respective way.

* The scene of apprehension described in this chapter actually occurred. It was detailed to the writer by a legal gentleman, and the description is but a slight exaggeration of the instance referred to.

CHAPTER IV.

"Yes, e'en in sleep the impressions all remain,
He hears the sentence, and he feels the chain;
He sees the judge and jury when he sleeps,
And loudly cries, "Not Guilty," and awakes:
Then chilling tremblings o'er his body creep,
Till worn out nature is compelled to sleep."

CRABBE.

To return to the Hall. Poor Gideon, with all thy equivocal means of becoming rich, with all thy grey-headed vanities, and senile weakness, we pity-yea, cordially pity thee. This day we fear is the sad initiative to a long catalogue of troubles. Those who have perused thy history, perchance may have read in it a lesson not wholly uninstructive. There he has sat in stupid, distracted reverie ever since his