wonderfully excited by this circumstance.

To an inquiry who was his companion, the constable answered _sotto
voce_, "Gentleman from Bow Street, come to see if he knows him."
The constable went on to inform Meadows that Robinson was out fishing
somewhere, otherwise they would already have taken him; "but we will
hang about the farm, and take him when he comes home."

"You had better be at hand, sir, to identify the notes," said the
gentleman from Bow Street, whose appearance was clerical.

Meadows had important business five miles off; he postponed it. He
wrote a line in pencil, put a boy upon his black mare, and hurried him
off to the rendezvous, while he stayed and entered with strange
alacrity into this affair. "Stay," cried he, "if he is an old hand he
will twig the officer."

"Oh, I'm dark, sir," was the answer; "he won't know me till I put the
darbies on him."

The two men then strolled as far as the village stocks, keeping an eye
ever on the farm-house.

Thus a network of adverse events was closing round George Fielding
this day.

He was all unconscious of them; he was in good spirits. Robinson had
showed him how to relieve the temporary embarrassment that had lately
depressed him.