By this time the whole household were brought to the doors and windows, and the squire to the portal.  An audience was demanded by Ready-Money Jack, who had detected the prisoner in the very act of sheep-stealing on his domains, and had borne him off to be examined before the squire, who is in the commission of the peace.

A kind of tribunal was immediately held in the servants’ hall, a large chamber with a stone floor and a long table in the centre, at one end of which, just under an enormous clock, was placed the squire’s chair of justice, while Master Simon took his place at the table as clerk of the court.  An attempt had been made by old Christy to keep out the gipsy gang, but in vain; and they, with the village worthies, and the household, half filled the hall.  The old housekeeper and the butler were in a panic at this dangerous irruption.  They hurried away all the valuable things and portable articles that were at hand, and even kept a dragon watch on the gipsies, lest they should carry off the house clock or the deal table.

[Illustration:  The Tribunal]

Old Christy, and his faithful coadjutor, the gamekeeper, acted as constables to guard the prisoner, triumphing in having at last got this terrible offender in their clutches.  Indeed I am inclined to think the old man bore some peevish recollection of having been handled rather roughly by the gipsy in the chance-medley affair of May-day.

Silence was now commanded by Master Simon; but it was difficult to be enforced in such a motley assemblage.  There was a continued snarling and yelping of dogs, and, as fast as it was quelled in one corner, it broke out in another.  The poor gipsy curs, who, like errant thieves, could not hold up their heads in an honest house, were worried and insulted by the gentleman dogs of the establishment, without offering to make resistance; the very curs of my Lady Lillycraft bullied them with impunity.

The examination was conducted with great mildness and indulgence by the squire, partly from the kindness of his nature, and partly, I suspect, because his heart yearned towards the culprit, who had found great favour in his eyes, as I have already observed, from the skill he had at various times displayed in archery, morris-dancing, and other obsolete accomplishments.  Proofs, however, were too strong.  Ready-Money Jack told his story in a straightforward independent way, nothing daunted by the presence in which he found himself.  He had suffered from various depredations on his sheep-fold and poultry-yard, and had at length kept watch, and caught the delinquent in the very act of making off with a sheep on his shoulders.