It was on the following morning, as the Doctor was under the operation of the barber, that his groom ran into the room with a pale face and agitated air, and exclaimed,

‘Oh! master, master, what do you think? Here is a man in the yard with my lord’s pony.’

‘Stop him, Peter,’ exclaimed the Doctor. ‘No! watch him, watch him; send for a constable. Are you certain ’tis the pony?’

‘I could swear to it out of a thousand,’ said Peter.

‘There, never mind my beard, my good man,’ said the Doctor. ‘There is no time for appearances. Here is a robbery, at least; God grant no worse. Peter, my boots!’ So saying, the Doctor, half equipped, and followed by Peter and the barber, went forth on the gallery. ‘Where is he?’ said the Doctor.

‘He is down below, talking to the ostler, and trying to sell the pony,’ said Peter.

‘There is no time to lose,’ said the Doctor; ‘follow me, like true men:’ and the Doctor ran downstairs in his silk nightcap, for his wig was not yet prepared.

‘There he is,’ said Peter; and true enough there was a man in a smock-frock and mounted on the very pony which Lady Annabel had presented to Plantagenet.

‘Seize this man in the King’s name,’ said the Doctor, hastily advancing to him. ‘Ostler, do your duty; Peter, be firm. I charge you all; I am a justice of the peace. I charge you arrest this man.’

The man seemed very much astonished; but he was composed, and offered no resistance. He was dressed like a small farmer, in top-boots and a smock-frock. His hat was rather jauntily placed on his curly red hair.

‘Why am I seized?’ at length said the man.

‘Where did you get that pony?’ said the Doctor.

‘I bought it,’ was the reply.

‘Of whom?’

‘A stranger at market.’

‘You are accused of robbery, and suspected of murder,’ said Dr. Masham. ‘Mr. Constable,’ said the Doctor, turning to that functionary, who had now arrived, ‘handcuff this man, and keep him in strict custody until further orders.’

The report that a man was arrested for robbery, and suspected of murder, at the Red Dragon, spread like wildfire through the town; and the inn-yard was soon crowded with the curious and excited inhabitants.

Peter and the barber, to whom he had communicated everything, were well qualified to do justice to the important information of which they were the sole depositaries; the tale lost nothing by their telling; and a circumstantial narrative of the robbery and murder of no less a personage than Lord Cadurcis, of Cadurcis Abbey, was soon generally prevalent.

The stranger was secured in a stable, before which the constable kept guard; mine host, and the waiter, and the ostlers acted as a sort of supernumerary police, to repress the multitude; while Peter held the real pony by the bridle, whose identity, which he frequently attested, was considered by all present as an incontrovertible evidence of the commission of the crime.

In the meantime Dr. Masham, really agitated, roused his brother magistrate, and communicated to his worship the important discovery. The Squire fell into a solemn flutter. ‘We must be regular, brother Masham; we must proceed by rule; we are a bench in ourselves. Would that my clerk were here! We must send for Signsealer forthwith. I will not decide without the statutes. The law must be consulted, and it must be obeyed. The fellow hath not brought my wig. ’Tis a case of murder no doubt. A Peer of the realm murdered! You must break the intelligence to his surviving parent, and I will communicate to the Secretary of State. Can the body be found? That will prove the murder. Unless the body be found, the murder will not be proved, save the villain confess, which he will not do unless he hath sudden compunctions. I have known sudden compunctions go a great way. We had a case before our bench last month; there was no evidence. It was not a case of murder; it was of woodcutting; there was no evidence; but the defendant had compunctions. Oh! here is my wig. We must send for Signsealer. He is clerk to our bench, and he must bring the statutes. ’Tis not simple murder this; it involves petty treason.’

By this time his worship had completed his toilet, and he and his colleague took their way to the parlour they had inhabited the preceding evening. Mr. Signsealer was in attendance, much to the real, though concealed, satisfaction of Squire Mountmeadow. Their worships were seated like two consuls before the table, which Mr. Signsealer had duly arranged with writing materials and various piles of calf-bound volumes. Squire Mountmeadow then, arranging his countenance, announced that the bench was prepared, and mine host was instructed forthwith to summon the constable and his charge, together with Peter and the ostler as witnesses. There was a rush among some of the crowd who were nighest the scene to follow the prisoner into the room; and, sooth to say, the great Mountmeadow was much too enamoured of his own self-importance to be by any means a patron of close courts and private hearings; but then, though he loved his power to be witnessed, he was equally desirous that his person should be reverenced. It was his boast that he could keep a court of quarter sessions as quiet as a church; and now, when the crowd rushed in with all those sounds of tumult incidental to such a movement, it required only Mountmeadow slowly to rise, and drawing himself up to the full height of his gaunt figure, to knit his severe brow, and throw one of his peculiar looks around the chamber, to insure a most awful stillness. Instantly everything was so hushed, that you might have heard Signsealer nib his pen.

The witnesses were sworn; Peter proved that the pony belonged to Lord Cadurcis, and that his lordship had been missing from home for several days, and was believed to have quitted the abbey on this identical pony. Dr. Masham was ready, if necessary, to confirm this evidence. The accused adhered to his first account, that he had purchased the animal the day before at a neighbouring fair, and doggedly declined to answer any cross-examination. Squire Mountmeadow looked alike pompous and puzzled; whispered to the Doctor; and then shook his head at Mr. Signsealer.

‘I doubt whether there be satisfactory evidence of the murder, brother Masham,’ said the Squire; ‘what shall be our next step?’

‘There is enough evidence to keep this fellow in custody,’ said the Doctor. ‘We must remand him, and make inquiries at the market town. I shall proceed there immediately, He is a strange-looking fellow,’ added the Doctor: &lsqu............