"Pray, what is your good will and pleasure, and whom do you seek, worshipful sir?" asked the boy, whose wits seemed to sharpen under exercise. "As for myself, I am quite harmless. I heard an old woman, one day, call me an innocent, and my nurse used to call me her lamb. So that, unless Justice be a wolf, I have nothing to fear from her fangs. Indeed, this knowledge-box of mine is so empty, that there are not materials within it sufficient to manufacture treason, even against a farmer's orchard; and, as for robbery or murder, upon my life they never came into my noddle--always excepting birds' nests and mackerel in the bay." "You are a merry boy, Master Richard," returned the Justice; "but our purpose in coming hither, is to seek a certain personage, passing for and reputed to be a servant of one Colonel Henry Smeaton. If he is produced at once, we shall give you no further trouble; but if not, we must search the house; for we are credibly informed that this man, in the disguise of a servant, is no other than the Earl of Eskdale, a known adherent of the Pretender. It is impossible for him to escape; for the house is surrounded. So you had better produce him at once. As I wish to do everything with courtesy, however, you had better communicate what I say to Colonel Smeaton, who may escape injurious suspicions if he gives his companion up freely." "Colonel Smeaton has gone over to Axminster this afternoon," said one of the servants, coming forward, "and won't be back to-night; but, as for his man, your worship, he was in the hall not a minute ago, and making all the maids laugh with his funny stories." "Ah, very likely," replied the Justice. "We have heard he is a jocular person. This confirms our information. Be so good as to ask him to walk hither, and remember you have admitted that he was in this house not a minute ago." "To be sure I did," retorted the man, surlily; "and I don't doubt that he'll be in this hall in less than a minute more." So saying he walked away, murmuring something about a pack of fools, which the Justice did not hear, or did not choose to hear. Turning quietly to the door of the smaller saloon, his worship observed, in his usual soft and courteous accents, "Perhaps, Master Richard, you will allow me to examine my prisoner in this room. We have had a long ride, and a seat in a chair would be pleasanter to me than to remain in the saddle or to stand upon my legs."