almost! But,
thank God, we've got the handcuffs on him at last."

'"We have, thank God," said the tall young man. "Well, I must move on.
Good luck to ye with your prisoner!" And off he went, as fast as his
poor jade would carry him.

'The constables then, with Georgy handcuffed between 'em, and leading the
horse, marched off in the other direction, toward the village where they
had been accosted by the escort of soldiers sent to bring the deserter
back, Georgy groaning: "I shall be shot, I shall be shot!" They had not
gone more than a mile before they met them.

'"Hoi, there!" says the head constable.

'"Hoi, yerself!" says the corporal in charge.

'"We've got your man," says the constable.

'"Where?" says the corporal.

'"Here, between us," said the constable. "Only you don't recognize him
out o' uniform."

'The corporal looked at Georgy hard enough; then shook his head and said
he was not the absconder.

'"But the absconder changed clothes with Farmer Jollice, and took his
horse; and this man has 'em, d'ye see!"

'"'Tis not our man," said the soldiers. "He's a tall young fellow with a
mole on his right cheek, and a military bearing, which this man decidedly
has not."

'"I told the two officers of justice that 'twas the other!" pleaded
Georgy. "But they wouldn't believe me."

'And so it became clear that the missing dragoon was the tall young
farmer, and not Georgy Crookhill--a fact which Farmer Jollice himself
corroborated when he arrived on the scene. As Georgy had only robbed the
robber, his sentence was comparatively light. The deserter from the
Dragoons was never traced: his double shift of clothing having been of
the greatest advantage to him in getting off; though he left Georgy's
horse behind him a few miles ahead, having found the poor creature more
hindrance than aid.'

* * * * *

The man from abroad seemed to be less interested in the questionable
characters of Longpuddle and their strange adventures than in the
ordinary inhabitants and the ordinary events, though his local fellow-
travellers preferred the former as subjects of discussion. He now for
the first time asked concerning young persons of the opposite sex--or
rather those who had been young when he left his native land. His
informants, adhering to their own opinion that the remarkable was better
worth telling than the ordinary, would not allow him to dwell upon the
simple chronicles of those who had merely come and gon