A labourer was at work in an adjoining field who must have witnessed all that had passed.  I called to him to follow us to the town.  He shook his head with stolid obstinacy, and walked away in the direction of a cottage which stood back from the high-road.  At the same time the men who held me between them declared their intention of charging me with an assault.  I was cool enough and wise enough now to make no opposition.  “Drop your hold of my arms,” I said, “and I will go with you to the town.”  The man in the gamekeeper’s dress roughly refused.  But the shorter man was sharp enough to look to consequences, and not to let his companion commit himself by unnecessary violence.  He made a sign to the other, and I walked on between them with my arms free.

We reached the turning in the road, and there, close before us, were the suburbs of Knowlesbury.  One of the local policemen was walking along the path by the roadside.  The men at once appealed to him.  He replied that the magistrate was then sitting at the town-hall, and recommended that we should appear before him immediately.

We went on to the town-hall.  The clerk made out a formal summons, and the charge was preferred against me, with the customary exaggeration and the customary perversion of the truth on such occasions.  The magistrate (an ill-tempered man, with a sour enjoyment in the exercise of his own power) inquired if any one on or near the road had witnessed the assault, and, greatly to my surprise, the complainant admitted the presence of the labourer in the field.  I was enlightened, however, as to the object of the admission by the magistrate’s next words.  He remanded me at once for the production of the witness, expressing, at the same time, his willingness to take bail for my reappearance if I could produce one responsible surety to offer it.  If I had been known in the town he would have liberated me on my own recognisances, but as I was a total stranger it was necessary that I should find responsible bail.

The whole object of the stratagem was now disclosed to me.  It had been so managed as to make a remand necessary in a town where I was a perfect stranger, and where I could not hope to get my liberty on bail.  The remand merely extended over three days, until the next sitting of the magistrate.  But in that time, while I was in confinement, Sir Percival might use any means he pleased to embarrass my future proceedings—­perhaps to screen himself from detection altogether—­without the slightest fear of any hindrance on my part.  At the end of the three days the charge would, no doubt, be withdrawn, and the attendance of the witness would be perfectly useless.