CHAPTER III.

THE AGENT.


Great was the concourse that thronged the room to which we first
introduced our reader, on the morning after the events we have
detailed--the weather-beaten mariner was there to state his charge--the
parish clerk with more than usual importance was ready to act as
secretary--the lawyer, the curate, all prepared to play their part in
the approaching drama of real life. The Earl in his magisterial
seat--bitter mockery of justice--prepared to sit in judgment on a wretch
not half so guilty as himself. But he belonged to a privileged
class--the other was one of the "lower orders."

The entrance of Mr. Simpkins the constable, with rueful countenance and
faltering voice, with the intelligence that the prisoner had escaped,
created a great sensation. No one was more indignant than the
Earl--though how far this was real may be judged when we inform the
reader that Lambert had held a long conversation with the prisoner,
Simpkins and his two assistants being first treated to a powerful opiate
in a mug of ale. This conversation had resulted in Curly Tom's
departing--a pensioned tool, a hired slave, to do the will, even to
murder, of his titled employer--he had no choice save the gallows. The
constable was severely reprimanded, a reward offered for the
apprehension of the fugitive--the seaman's deposition taken in due form,