If his worship is satisfied,
why so, in course, shall we be; but there is highwaymen abroad, look
you; and, to our notion, you have very much the cut of one."
Further remonstrances or threats on the part of Mr. Macshane were
useless. Although he vowed that he was first cousin to the Duke of
Leinster, an officer in Her Majesty's service, and the dearest
friend Lord Marlborough had, his impudent captors would not believe
a word of his statement (which, further, was garnished with a
tremendous number of oaths); and he was, about eight o'clock,
carried up to the house of Squire Ballance, the neighbouring justice
of the peace.
When the worthy magistrate asked the crime of which the prisoner had
been guilty, the captors looked somewhat puzzled for the moment;
since, in truth, it could not be shown that the Ensign had committed
any crime at all; and if he had confined himself to simple silence,
and thrown upon them the onus of proving his misdemeanours, Justice
Ballance must have let him loose, and soundly rated his clerk and
the landlord for detaining an honest gentleman on so frivolous a
charge.
But this caution was not in the Ensign's disposition; and though his
accusers produced no satisfactory charge against him, his own words
were quite enough to show how suspicious his character was.
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