by a constable, who informed me that he was sent to request my immediate appearance before a neighbouring bench of magistrates.  Concluding that I was merely summoned on some unimportant business connected with the neighbourhood, I felt no surprise, and forthwith departed in company with the officer.  The demeanour of the man upon the way struck me as somewhat singular.  I had frequently spoken to him before, and had always found him civil and respectful, but he was now reserved and sullen, and replied to two or three questions which I put to him in anything but a courteous manner.  On arriving at the place where the magistrates were sitting—­an inn at a small town about two miles distant—­I found a more than usual number of people assembled, who appeared to be conversing with considerable eagerness.  At sight of me they became silent, but crowded after me as I followed the man into the magistrates’ room.  There I found the tradesman to whom I had paid the note for the furniture at the town fifteen miles off in attendance, accompanied by an agent of the Bank of England; the former, it seems, had paid the note into a provincial bank, the proprietors of which, discovering it to be a forgery, had forthwith written up to the Bank of England, who had sent down their agent to investigate the matter.  A third individual stood beside them—­the person in my own immediate neighbourhood to whom I had paid the second note; this, by some means or other, before the coming down of the agent, had found its way to the same provincial bank, and also being pronounced a forgery, it had speedily been traced to the person to whom I had paid it.  It was owing to the apparition of this second note that the agent had determined, without further inquiry, to cause me to be summoned before the rural tribunal.

“In a few words the magistrates’ clerk gave me to understand the state of the case.  I was filled with surprise and consternation.  I knew myself to be perfectly innocent of any fraudulent intention, but at the time of which I am speaking it was a matter fraught with the greatest danger to be mixed up, however innocently, with the passing of false money.  The law with respect to forgery was terribly severe, and the innocent as well as the guilty occasionally suffered.  Of this I was not altogether ignorant; unfortunately, however, in my transactions with the stranger, the idea of false notes being offered to me, and my being brought into trouble by means of them, never entered my mind.  Recovering myself a little, I stated that the notes in question were two of three notes which I had received at Horncastle, for a pair of horses, which it was well known I had carried thither.