“Who put that there?” cried Harvey in an agony of mind which can be better imagined than described.  “Who has done me this grievous wrong?  I know nothing as to how the watch came into my trunk.”

No one answered this appeal.  All present stood for a moment in gloomy silence.

“Sir,” said the landlord to Harvey on recovering from his surprise, “I am sorry for you.  For the sake of a miserable trifle, you have brought ruin and disgrace on yourself.  This is a matter which concerns the honor of my house, and cannot stop here.  However much it is against my feelings, you must go before a magistrate.”

“By all means,” added No. 17, with the importance of an injured man.  “A pretty thing that one’s watch is not safe in a house like this!”

“John, send Boots for a constable,” said the landlord.

Harvey sat with his head leaning on his hand.  A deadly cold perspiration trickled down his brow.  His heart swelled and beat as if it would burst.  What should he do?  His whole prospects were in an instant blighted.  “Oh God! do not desert a frail and unhappy being:  give me strength to face this new and terrible misfortune,” was a prayer he internally uttered.  A little revived, he started to his feet, and addressing himself to the landlord, he said, “Take me to a magistrate instantly, and let us have this diabolical plot unraveled.  I court inquiry into my character and conduct.”

“It is no use saying any more about it,” answered the landlord; “here is Boots with a constable, and let us all go away together to the nearest magistrate.  Boots, carry that trunk.  John and Sally, you can follow us.”

And so the party, trunk and all, under the constable as conductor, adjourned to the house of a magistrate in an adjacent street.  There the matter seemed so clear a case of felony—­robbery in a dwelling-house—­that Harvey, all protestations to the contrary, was fully committed for trial at the ensuing March assizes, then but a few days distant.

At the period at which these incidents occurred, I was a young man going on my first circuits.  I had not as yet been honored with perhaps more than three or four briefs, and these only in cases so slightly productive of fees, that I was compelled to study economy in my excursions.  Instead of taking up my residence at an inn when visiting ------, a considerable seaport, where the court held its sittings, I dwelt in lodgings kept by a widow lady, where, at a small expense, I could enjoy perfect quietness, free from interruption.

On the evening after my arrival on the March circuit of the year 17—­, I was sitting in my lodgings perusing a new work on criminal jurisprudence, when the landlady, after tapping at the door, entered my room.

“I am sorry to trouble you, sir,” said she; “but a lady has called to see you about a very distressing law case—­very distressing indeed, and a very strange case it is too.  Only, if you could be so good as to see her?”