Cursty felt his heart sink heavily into his boots, like a stone in a well, and solemnly summoning Mrs. Fokesell into the room, bade her, in as firm a voice as he could manage under the circumstances, tell him then and there what it was all about. Mrs. Fokesell, who grew angry on finding that her regard for delicacy was in no way appreciated, bounced boldly into the room, and, looking Mr. Sandboys full in the face, said, as she shook her head rapidly at him— “Well, then, if you _will_ have it! there’s the beadle from the work’us has come after you.” Mr. Sandboys stood aghast;—his jaw fell like a French toy nut-cracker’s, and his hair stood on end till it looked almost like a grenadier’s cap. The Major, to conceal the smiles which he could not suppress, turned a half _pirouette_ on his wooden leg, as if he were a pair of animated compasses describing the arc of a circle. Mrs. Sandboys looked a whole library, or several hundred volumes, of doubt and fears at her wretched partner. What _could_ it all mean? she mentally inquired, as she untied her bonnet strings, and began fanning herself violently with her pocket-handkerchief. A solemn silence reigned for a minute or two after Mrs. Fokesell’s announcement—a silence like that which succeeds a violent peal of thunder. “T’ beadle from t’ workhouse!” exclaimed the amazed north countryman. “What in t’ warld can t’ man want wi’ me?” “Want!” echoed the indignant landlady, with a jerk of her head that made the grubby artificial flowers in her cap shake again. “Well, if your own conscience wont tell you, there’s the beadle hisself in the passage, and you’d better step out and ask him; for it ain’t my place to breed words in a family.” Here the shoulders of the Major, who was pretending to be looking out of the window, were seen to shake violently, while Mrs. Sandboys cried, “Breed words! What _can_ t’ mean?” Cursty, who began to perceive that matters were assuming a very serious complexion, summoned all his little philosophy to his aid, and making the greatest possible show of it in his countenance, like a tradesman with a small stock of goods dressing his shop-window to the best advantage, directed Mrs. Fokesell to desire the parish functionary to step in. The next moment the Terror of boys at church, and the Leader of parish engines to chimneys on fire, marched into the room in all the imposing pomp of gold lace, cocked hat, and capes, and the countenance, which was all austerity to the children in the free seats, relaxed into a pleasing benignity immediately the possessor of it discovered that the “party” of whom he had come in quest belonged to the “respectable classes.” Mr. Sandboys, in the best style of injured innocence, inquired briskly of the officer what was the nature of his business with him.