Swift Nicks does matter. We want him hung. No man about here with any
sense bothers about your politics except at election-times, when politics
means a belly full of beer and a fist full of guineas for every damned
tinker and tallow-chandler in Leicester. But you, or that bloody villain
Swift Nicks, if you a'nt him, keep us sweating-cold o' nights. To hell
with your politics! Hang me Swift Nicks!"

The terms of our treaty were that I was to remain peaceably and make a
night of it, giving my word to make no attempt to escape or harm anyone.
In the meantime, and at my proper charges, a post was to be sent to fetch
Nance Lousely and her father to give evidence on my behalf.

"DEAR GHOSTIE,"--I wrote to her,--"I am in great danger because a
red-nosed man vows I am Swift Nicks. I want you and your father to come
and prove he's an ass. If you don't I am to be hung on a gibbet at a place
called the Copt Oak, and I can't abide gibbets, for they are cold and
draughty. So come at once, my brave Nance!--Your friend,

"O. W."

A groom was fetched and I told him how to get to Job Lousely's. He was
well mounted from the Squire's stables and set off. However quickly he did
his business, it would be many hours before he could be back. So I settled
down to make a night of it.

There was nothing original in the Squire's way of making a night of it.
The parson who had been in at the death and who, during the settlement of
my affair, had been busy in the stables, now joined us at dinner. He was
but lately come from Cambridge, at which seat of learning the chief books
appeared to be Bracken's _Farriery_ and Gibson on the _Diseases of