After some further contest Mr. Falkland, finding Mr. Forester obstinate
and impracticable, withdrew his opposition. Accordingly a proper officer
was summoned from the neighbouring village, a mittimus made out, and one
of Mr. Falkland's carriages prepared to conduct me to the place of
custody. It will easily be imagined that this sudden reverse was very
painfully felt by me. I looked round on the servants who had been the
spectators of my examination, but not one of them, either by word or
gesture, expressed compassion for my calamity. The robbery of which I
was accused appeared to them atrocious from its magnitude; and whatever
sparks of compassion might otherwise have sprung up in their ingenuous
and undisciplined minds, were totally obliterated by indignation at my
supposed profligacy in recriminating upon their worthy and excellent
master. My fate being already determined, and one of the servants
despatched for the officer, Mr. Forester and Mr. Falkland withdrew, and
left me in the custody of two others.

One of these was the son of a farmer at no great distance, who had been
in habits of long-established intimacy with my late father. I was
willing accurately to discover the state of mind of those who had been
witnesses of this scene, and who had had some previous opportunity of
observing my character and manners. I, therefore, endeavoured to open a
conversation with him. "Well, my good Thomas," said I, in a querulous
tone, and with a hesitating manner, "am I not a most miserable
creature?"

"Do not speak to me, Master Williams! You have given me a shock that I
shall not get the better of for one while. You were hatched by a hen, as
the saying is, but you came of the spawn of a cockatrice. I am glad to
my heart that honest farmer Williams is dead; your villainy would else
have made him curse the day that ever he was born."