The three injustices rose by one impulse.  “Make your preparations to leave the jail,” said Mr. Woodcock.

“Half an hour is quite enough under the circumstances,” said Williams.

Palmer stood aghast—­his mind was not fast enough to keep up.

Mr. Eden bowed and retired.  He was scarcely out of the room when the justices drew up an order for his suspension from his office.

Mr. Hawes was next sent for.

“We have found the chaplain all you described him.  Discipline is impossible with such a man; here is an order for his suspension.”  Hawes’s eyes sparkled.  “We will enter it into the book, meantime you are to see it executed.”  Hawes went out, but presently returned.

“He won’t go, gentlemen.”

“What do you mean by he won’t go?” said Williams.

“I told him your orders; and he said, ’Tell their worships they are exceeding their authority, and I won’t go.’  Then I said, ’They give you half an hour to pack up and then you must pack off.’”

“He! he! he! and what did he say?”

“‘Oh, they give me half an hour, do they?’ says he—­’you take them this’—­and he wrote this on a slip of paper—­here it is.”

The slip contained these words—­

[Greek letters]

While the justices were puzzling over this, Hawes added, “Gentlemen, he said in his polite way, ’If it is like the prison rules and beats their comprehension, you may tell them it means—­

“’There is many a slip
‘Twixt the cup and the lip.’”

“Well, Mr. Hawes—­what next?”

“‘I am victualed for a siege,’ says he, and he goes into his own room, and I heard him shoot the bolt.”

“What does that mean?” inquired Mr. Palmer.

“It means, sir, that you won’t get him out except by kicking him out.”  Hawes had been irritating their wounded vanity in order to get them up to this mark.

“Then turn him out by force,” said Williams.  But the other two were wiser.  “No, we must not do that—­we can keep him out if once he crosses the door.”

“I will manage it for you, gentlemen,” said Mr. Hawes.

“Do.”

Mr. Hawes went out and primed Fry with a message to Mr. Eden that a gentleman had ridden over from Oxford to see him, and was at his house.

Mr. Eden was in his room busy collecting and arranging several papers.  He had just tied them up in a little portfolio when he heard Fry’s voice at the door.  When that worthy delivered his message his lip curled with scorn.  But he said, “Very well.”  I will disappoint the sly boobies, thought he.  But the next moment, looking out of his window, he saw a fly with a gray horse coming along the road.  “At last,” he cried, and instantly unbolted his door, and issued forth with his little portfolio under his arm.  He had scarce taken ten steps when a turnkey popped out from a corner and stood sentinel over his room-door, barring all return.