‘Oh! ho!’ said the Squire, looking very mysterious and important.  ‘With your worship’s permission,’ he added, filling a pipe.

The host was no laggard in waiting on two such important guests.  The brother magistrates despatched their rump-steak; the foaming tankard was replenished; the fire renovated.  At length, the table and the room being alike clear, Squire Mountmeadow drew a long puff, and said, ’Now for business, Doctor.’

His companion then informed him of the exact object of his visit, and narrated to him so much of the preceding incidents as was necessary.  The Squire listened in solemn silence, elevating his eyebrows, nodding his head, trimming his pipe, with profound interjections; and finally, being appealed to for his opinion by the Doctor, delivered himself of a most portentous ‘Hem!’

‘I question, Doctor,’ said the Squire, ’whether we should not communicate with the Secretary of State.  ’Tis no ordinary business.  ‘Tis a spiriting away of a Peer of the realm.  It smacks of treason.’

‘Egad!’ said the Doctor, suppressing a smile, ’I think we can hardly make a truant boy a Cabinet question.’

The Squire glanced a look of pity at his companion.  ’Prove the truancy, Doctor; prove it.  ’Tis a case of disappearance; and how do we know that there is not a Jesuit at the bottom of it?’

‘There is something in that,’ said the Doctor.

‘There is everything in it,’ said the Squire, triumphantly.  ’We must offer rewards; we must raise the posse comitatus.’

’For the sake of the family, I would make as little stir as necessary,’ said Dr. Masham.

‘For the sake of the family!’ said the Squire.  ’Think of the nation, sir!  For the sake of the nation we must make as much stir as possible.  ’Tis a Secretary of State’s business; ’tis a case for a general warrant.’

‘He is a well-meaning lad enough,’ said the Doctor.

‘Ay, and therefore more easily played upon,’ said the Squire.  ’Rome is at the bottom of it, brother Masham, and I am surprised that a good Protestant like yourself, one of the King’s Justices of the Peace, and a Doctor of Divinity to boot, should doubt the fact for an instant.’

‘We have not heard much of the Jesuits of late years,’ said the Doctor.

‘The very reason that they are more active,’ said the Squire.

‘An only child!’ said Dr. Masham.

‘A Peer of the realm!’ said Squire Mountmeadow.

‘I should think he must be in the neighbourhood.’

‘More likely at St. Omer’s.’

‘They would scarely take him to the plantations with this war?’

‘Let us drink “Confusion to the rebels!"’ said the Squire.  ‘Any news?’

‘Howe sails this week,’ said the Doctor.

‘May he burn Boston!’ said the Squire.

‘I would rather he would reduce it, without such extremities,’ said Dr. Masham.

‘Nothing is to be done without extremities,’ said Squire Mountmeadow.