‘I bought it,’ was the reply.

‘Of whom?’

‘A stranger at market.’

‘You are accused of robbery, and suspected of murder,’ said Dr. Masham.  ‘Mr. Constable,’ said the Doctor, turning to that functionary, who had now arrived, ’handcuff this man, and keep him in strict custody until further orders.’

The report that a man was arrested for robbery, and suspected of murder, at the Red Dragon, spread like wildfire through the town; and the inn-yard was soon crowded with the curious and excited inhabitants.

Peter and the barber, to whom he had communicated everything, were well qualified to do justice to the important information of which they were the sole depositaries; the tale lost nothing by their telling; and a circumstantial narrative of the robbery and murder of no less a personage than Lord Cadurcis, of Cadurcis Abbey, was soon generally prevalent.

The stranger was secured in a stable, before which the constable kept guard; mine host, and the waiter, and the ostlers acted as a sort of supernumerary police, to repress the multitude; while Peter held the real pony by the bridle, whose identity, which he frequently attested, was considered by all present as an incontrovertible evidence of the commission of the crime.

In the meantime Dr. Masham, really agitated, roused his brother magistrate, and communicated to his worship the important discovery.  The Squire fell into a solemn flutter.  ’We must be regular, brother Masham; we must proceed by rule; we are a bench in ourselves.  Would that my clerk were here!  We must send for Signsealer forthwith.  I will not decide without the statutes.  The law must be consulted, and it must be obeyed.  The fellow hath not brought my wig.  ’Tis a case of murder no doubt.  A Peer of the realm murdered!  You must break the intelligence to his surviving parent, and I will communicate to the Secretary of State.  Can the body be found?  That will prove the murder.  Unless the body be found, the murder will not be proved, save the villain confess, which he will not do unless he hath sudden compunctions.  I have known sudden compunctions go a great way.  We had a case before our bench last month; there was no evidence.  It was not a case of murder; it was of woodcutting; there was no evidence; but the defendant had compunctions.  Oh! here is my wig.  We must send for Signsealer.  He is clerk to our bench, and he must bring the statutes.  ‘Tis not simple murder this; it involves petty treason.’

By this time his worship had completed his toilet, and he and his colleague took their way to the parlour they had inhabited the preceding evening.  Mr. Signsealer was in attendance, much to the real, though concealed, satisfaction of Squire Mountmeadow.  Their worships were seated like two consuls before the table, which Mr. Signsealer had duly arranged with writing materials and various piles of calf-bound volumes.  Squire Mountmeadow then, arranging his