“No--fear of--that, sir,” replied the exciseman, winking, and puffing the smoke from his lips thrice as he spoke; “we've no enemies here.--I'll tell you all--about it--sir, when--I have wetted--my lips.” He now raised the jug to his mouth, but before he had finished his draught, little Tailor Mudford, who sat by his side, taking advantage of the moment, placed his right elbow on his knee, and still keeping his pipe between his teeth, leaned forward, and bore away the glory of the announcement from the exciseman, by stating, that Philip Govier, 'Squire Stapleton's gamekeeper, had been killed; and young Robert Braintree committed for trial, as the perpetrator of the crime. “Robert Braintree! Robert Braintree!” calmly repeated the old man; “Preserve us from evil! Haven't I seen him?” “To be sure you have, sir,” replied Gough; “a tall, straight-limbed chap, between eighteen and twenty, and as fine a young fellow as ever stood in shoe-leather. I shouldn't ha' thought it of him.” “I should,” said the exciseman; “a down-looking--” “Ah! I be zorry vor the lad,” said Mudford, again interrupting the exciseman, in the brief interval occupied by a puff and a wink; “nobody could zay harm o' un, except that his vather made un go out a poaching wi' un, and so vorth: but a zung in the choir o' Zindays; and' though he never were asked so to do, often joined in, wi' the rest o' th' neighbours, to reap a little varmer's bit o' wheat, or mow a tradesman's whoats he ha' done zo by me, many's the time, wi'out any thing but thanks, and a bit o' dinner and a drop o' drink, which he never wanted at home. He'd ha' been the last I should ha' zuzpected.” “But the evidence,” said constable and schoolmaster Abel, “the circumstantial evidence, doth leave no doubt, either in the mind of me, or the magistrate, of his guilt.” “You be d--d, Yeabel!” cried a bluff old fellow in a corner; “Who be you, I should like to know?--Marry come up, then! times be come to a vine pass, I trow, when a pig-vaced bit of a constable, two yards long, and as thin as a hurdle, do zet hi'zelf up cheek-by-jowl wi' the 'squire!--Who cares vor thy opinion, dost think?” “Farmer Salter,” responded Abel, with affected humility; “I am educating your son and heir:--you are a freeholder, and ha' got a vote for the county--” “I know that well enough, stupid! and zo had my vather avore me, and so shall my zon a'ter me.--Poor buoay! you ha' often licked un, Yeabel:--may be you be right--may be you bean't; but this I do know, tho' I ha'n't a told un zo, that I do vind, upon casting things over, whenzoever I do gie you a bit ov a clumzy wipe here, at The Chough and Stump, over night Jack's zure and zartin to get breeched in your school-room the next day: now that be odd, yean't it, Gough?”