way. Have I a moment of my life quiet for warrants, orders, directions, acts, bails, bonds, and recognisances?— I pronounce to you, Mr. Jobson, that I shall send you and the justiceship to the devil one of these days.”
“Your honour will consider the dignity of the office one of the quorum and custos rotulorum, an office of which Sir Edward Coke wisely saith, The whole Christian world hath not the like of it, so it be duly executed.”
“Well,” said the Justice, partly reconciled by this eulogium on the dignity of his situation, and gulping down the rest of his dissatisfaction in a huge bumper of claret, “let us to this gear then, and get rid of it as fast as we can.— Here you, sir — you, Morris — you, knight of the sorrowful countenance — is this Mr. Francis Osbaldistone the gentleman whom you charge with being art and part of felony?”
“I, sir?” replied Morris, whose scattered wits had hardly yet reassembled themselves; “I charge nothing — I say nothing against the gentleman,”
“Then we dismiss your complaint, sir, that’s all, and a good riddance — Push about the bottle — Mr. Osbaldistone, help yourself.”
Jobson, however, was determined that Morris should not back out of the scrape so easily. “What do you mean, Mr. Morris?— Here is your own declaration — the ink scarce dried — and you would retract it in this scandalous manner!”
“How do I know,” whispered the other in a tremulous tone, “how many rogues are in the house to back him? I have read of such things in Johnson’s Lives of the Highwaymen. I protest the door opens”—
And it did open, and Diana Vernon entered —“You keep fine order here, Justice — not a servant to be seen or heard of.”
“Ah!” said the Justice, starting up with an alacrity which showed that he was not so engrossed by his devotions to Themis or Comus, as to forget what was due to beauty —“Ah, ha! Die Vernon, the heath-bell of Cheviot, and the blossom of the Border, come to see how the old bachelor keeps house? Art welcome, girl, as flowers in May.”
“A fine, open, hospitable house you do keep, Justice, that must be allowed — not a soul to answer a visitor.”
“Ah, the knaves! they reckoned themselves secure of me for a couple of hours — But why did you not come earlier?— Your cousin Rashleigh dined here, and ran away like a poltroon after the first bottle was out — But you have not dined — we’ll have something nice and ladylike — sweet and pretty like yourself, tossed up in a trice.”
“I may eat a crust in the ante-room before I set out,” answered Miss Vernon —“I have had a long ride this morning; but I can’t stay long, Justice — I came with my cousin, Frank Osbaldistone, there, and I must show him the way back again to the Hall, or he’ll lose himself in the wolds.”
“Whew! sits the wind in that quarter?” inquired the Justice —
“She showed him the way, she showed him the way,
She showed him the way to woo.
What! no luck for old fellows, then, my sweet bud of the wilderness?”
“None whatever, Squire Inglewood; but if you will be a good kind Justice, and despatch young Frank’s business, and let us canter home again, I’ll bring my uncle to dine with you next week, and we’ll expect merry doings.”
“And you shall find them, my pearl of the Tyne — Zookers, lass, I never envy these young fellows their rides and scampers, unless when you come across me. But I must not keep you just now, I suppose?— I am quite satisfied with Mr. Francis Osbaldistone’s explanation — here has been some mistake, which can be cleared at greater leisure.”
“Pardon me, sir,” said I; “but I have not heard the nature of the accusation yet.”
“Yes, sir,” said the clerk, who, at the appearance of Miss Vernon, had given up the matter in despair, but who picked up courage to press farther investigation on finding himself supported from a quarter whence assuredly he expected no backing —“Yes, sir, and Dalton saith, That he who is apprehended as a felon shall not be discharged upon any man’s discretion, but shall be held either to bail or commitment, paying to the clerk of the peace the usual fees for recognisance or commitment.”
The Justice, thus goaded on, gave me at length a few words of explanation.
It seems the tricks which I had played to this man Morris had made a strong impression on his imagination; for I found they had been arrayed against me in his evidence, with all the exaggerations which a timorous and heated imagination could suggest. It appeared also, that on the day he parted from me, he had been stopped on a solitary spot and eased of his beloved travelling-companion, the portmanteau, by two men, well mounted and armed, having their faces covered with vizards.
One of them, he conceived, had much of my shape and air, and in a whispering conversation which took place betwixt the freebooters, he heard the other apply to him the name of Osbaldistone. The declaration farther set forth, that upon inquiring into the principles of the family so named, he, the said declarant, was informed that they were of the worst description, the family, in all its members, having been Papists and Jacobites, as he was given to understand by the dissenting clergyman at whose house he stopped after his rencontre, since the days of William the Conqueror.
Upon all and each of these weighty reasons, he charged me with being accessory to the felony committed upon his person; he, the said declarant, then travelling in the special employment of Government, and having charge of certain important papers, and also a large sum in specie, to be paid over, according to his instructions, to certain persons of official trust and importance in Scotland.
Having heard this extraordinary accusation, I replied to it, that the circumstances on which it was founded were such as could warrant no justice, or magistrate, in any attempt on my personal liberty. I admitted that I had practised a little upon the terrors of Mr. Morris, while we travelled together, but in such trifling particulars as could have excited apprehension in no one who was one whit less timorous and jealous than himself. But I added, that I had never seen him since we parted, and if that which he feared had really come upon him, I was in nowise accessory to an action so unworthy of my character and station in life. That one of the robbers was called Osbaldistone, or that such a name was mentioned in the course of the conversation betwixt them, was a trifling circumstance, to which no weight was due. And concerning the disaffection alleged against me, I was willing to prove, to the satisfaction of the Justice, the clerk, and even the witness himself, that I was of the same persuasion as his friend the dissenting clergyman; had been educated as a good subject in the principles of the Revolution, and as such now demanded the personal protection of the laws which had been assured by that great event.
The Justice fidgeted, took snuff, and seemed considerably embarrassed, while Mr. Attorney Jobson, with all the volubility of his profession, ran over the statute of the 34 Edward III., by which justices of the peace are allowed to arrest all those whom they find by indictment or suspicion, and to put them into prison. The rogue even turned my own admissions against me, alleging, “that since I had confessedly, upon my own showing, assumed the bearing or deportment of a robber or malefactor, I had voluntarily subjected myself to the suspicions of which I complained, and brought myself within the compass of the act, having wilfully clothed my conduct with all the colour and livery of guilt.”
I combated both his arguments and his jargon with much indignation and scorn, and observed, “That I should, if necessary, produce the bail of my relations, which I conceived could not be refused, without subjecting the magistrate in a misdemeanour.”
