But luckily we could safely say that Mrs. Medlicott did not want us; and as we had whispered to each other, as we sat alone in the coach, that surely my lady must have gone to Job Gregson’s, we were far too anxious to know the end of it all to say that we were tired. So we all set off to Hathaway. Mr. Harry Lathom was a bachelor squire, thirty or thirty-five years of age, more at home in the field than in the drawing-room, and with sporting men than with ladies. My lady did not alight, of course; it was Mr. Lathom’s place to wait upon her, and she bade the butler,—who had a smack of the gamekeeper in him, very unlike our own powdered venerable fine gentleman at Hanbury,—tell his master, with her compliments, that she wished to speak to him. You may think how pleased we were to find that we should hear all that was said; though, I think, afterwards we were half sorry when we saw how our presence confused the squire, who would have found it bad enough to answer my lady’s questions, even without two eager girls for audience. “Pray, Mr. Lathom,” began my lady, something abruptly for her,—but she was very full of her subject,—“what is this I hear about Job Gregson?” Mr. Lathom looked annoyed and vexed, but dared not show it in his words. “I gave out a warrant against him, my lady, for theft,—that is all. You are doubtless aware of his character; a man who sets nets and springes in long cover, and fishes wherever he takes a fancy. It is but a short step from poaching to thieving.” “That is quite true,” replied Lady Ludlow (who had a horror of poaching for this very reason): “but I imagine you do not send a man to gaol on account of his bad character.” “Rogues and vagabonds,” said Mr. Lathom. “A man may be sent to prison for being a vagabond; for no specific act, but for his general mode of life.” He had the better of her ladyship for one moment; but then she answered— “But in this case, the charge on which you committed him is for theft; now his wife tells me he can prove he was some miles distant from Holmwood, where the robbery took place, all that afternoon; she says you had the evidence before you.” Mr. Lathom here interrupted my lady, by saying, in a somewhat sulky manner—“No such evidence was brought before me when I gave the warrant. I am not answerable for the other magistrates’ decision, when they had more evidence before them. It was they who committed him to gaol. I am not responsible for that.”