"What is the meaning of this?" indignantly demanded Lee, as half a dozen strapping fellows clad in the local militia uniform broke through the crowd of smock-frocks, and closed round him. "Is this the way you do your duty, Master Sergeant?" he went on addressing that officer, who had seized his bridle-rein. [Sidenote: Arrested for murder.] "Ay, it be, Master Cap'n," grinned the fellow--for Lee was the head of their company--"an' a moighty proper pretty way too. You be our prisoner!" "Prisoner!" "Oy, oy, it be all roight, ship-shape. You be arrested." "On what charge?" "That be no business o' yourn." "The murder o' Sheriff Goodenough," shrieked an open-mouthed matron. "The murder o' Sheriff Goodenough, Master Innocence. Him as lies dead in the Warder's Room at Master Rumbold's?" "By whose charge?" said Lee, passing his hand across his eyes, like a man striving to see the light. "You want to be knowing more than's good for you," sneeringly replied the sergeant; "'tis all roight. Him as asks no questions, woan't be telled no lies. I warrant ya 't be no use kickin'. Eh--yow! yow! stand still, you brute," yelled the brave Hector, as Lawrence's horse evinced a decided disposition to make a trial of his heels, and sent the by-standers to a safer distance. Lee, however, quieted the animal, and then with a composure of manner that worked everybody up to an unendurable pitch of exasperation, he again demanded his accuser's name. "Colonel Richard Rumsey," answered the spokesman, thinking it wiser perhaps to comply. "Very good," said Lawrence dismounting, and consigning his horse to one of his own stablemen who stood near. "Come! Quick march, cap'n," said the sergeant, regaining all his wonted valour, as the sound of the departing horse's hoofs grew fainter and fainter. "Where to?" said Lawrence, facing about. [Sidenote: "To the King's Arms!"] "The King's Arms, to begin with, and then--" the man chuckled. "That will do," calmly said Lee. "What do you mean by this?" he added, a purple red flush of wounded pride suffusing all his face, as a stout cord was flung over his shoulders from behind, and a dozen hands secured it. "Only a little compliment we pay to plotters and suchlike folk," laughed the sergeant. [Sidenote: Mob law.] Lawrence was about to make a violent resistance; but suddenly his face changed, a look of deep humiliation came over it, and he stopped short. "Do I not deserve this?" he said to himself, and then he submitted quietly; and as if he were in his old position as leader of these men, and not the led one, he turned and faced about for the Rye; only delaying for a moment to charge some of the terror-stricken women-servants of the farm with a cheering message for his mother, and to bid them conceal the truth from her, as up till now they had contrived to do--"till he should return," as he said, regardless of the mocking gibes of the rabble, pressing upon all sides. CHAPTER XXX A TRAVELLER FROM NEWMARKET.