‘Easy, easy boys,’ said he, ‘we’ll be on them in a jiffy—don’t fire till I give you the word, and you’ll see we’ll surround them and take them all prisoners.’ So saying, he crept softly on some way in front. The night was very dark, and we could see nothing distinctly; but when within about fifty yards of the top of the hill, we were startled by a tremendous clatter of feet upon the stones of the road, followed by the cry of ‘Murder, murder! Fire, fire!’ We had not been accustomed to waste our ammunition uselessly, and waited a second or two to see what we had to fire at; but one of our party (a recruit) snapt his musket on the alarm; luckily for the constable, it missed fire, for it was directed at him as the only object that could be seen. In less time, however, than I could relate it, the cause of our alarm rushed past in the shape of a horse, that had sprung from the field upon the road as we advanced. Having reached the spot pointed out by the constable, nothing could be seen but a few heifers grazing about, quite unconscious of having disturbed the peace. We certainly did not feel well pleased at being turned out at such an unseasonable hour to no purpose, and we taxed the constable roundly with imagining the whole story, but he swore by all that was good, that every word of what he told was truth. Next morning, however, we were convinced that our surmises were correct, for on inspecting the field where the Shanavests were said to be assembled, not a single foot-mark could be seen, although the ground was moist from previous rain; besides, it was well known that the constable had taken a sup too much at the fair, for when he left it he was scarcely able to sit his horse. For some time we were regularly called out by these fellows, when they went to distrain a man’s goods for rent or tithes, until we were more like the bailiff’s body-guard than anything else. But after being made fools of in this way two or three times, our officer remonstrated, and arranged matters so, that we were not obliged to go out without a special order from the magistrate. This relieved us from the petty affairs more immediately under the cognizance of the constable; but still we had enough to do in following the magistrate, who seemed to consider a hunt after his countrymen even more amusing than one after the fox. Had the people been peaceably inclined, his conduct would have goaded them on to outrage. He was continually up to the ears in business—some momentous matter always on hand. Every trifling riot was magnified into a deep-laid rebellion—if a cabin or a hay stack was set on fire, a whole village was burned—if one man was wounded, a dozen were killed; and so on, always magnifying the event in proportion to the distance. His conduct put me in mind of those amateurs, who when they want to bait a bull, aggravate it to the necessary pitch to create them sufficient sport, and then allege its madness as a pretext for treating it cruelly.