think I would not go there if I thought it right, and
wished to protect a friend? You have no one to stand by you--you are a
stranger; and here, in the outskirts of the kingdom, country justices do
odd things. My uncle has no desire to embroil himself in your affair;
Rashleigh is absent, and were he here, there is no knowing which side he
might take; the rest are all more stupid and brutal one than another. I
will go with you, and I do not fear being able to serve you. I am no fine
lady, to be terrified to death with law-books, hard words, or big wigs."

"But my dear Miss Vernon"--

"But my dear Mr. Francis, be patient and quiet, and let me take my own
way; for when I take the bit between my teeth, there is no bridle will
stop me."

Flattered with the interest so lovely a creature seemed to take in my
fate, yet vexed at the ridiculous appearance I should make, by carrying a
girl of eighteen along with me as an advocate, and seriously concerned
for the misconstruction to which her motives might be exposed, I
endeavoured to combat her resolution to accompany me to Squire
Inglewood's. The self-willed girl told me roundly, that my dissuasions
were absolutely in vain; that she was a true Vernon, whom no
consideration, not even that of being able to do but little to assist
him, should induce to abandon a friend in distress; and that all I could
say on the subject might be very well for pretty, well-educated,
well-behaved misses from a town boarding-school, but did not apply to
her, who was accustomed to mind nobody's opinion but her own.

While she spoke thus, we were advancing hastily towards Inglewood Place,
while, as if to divert me from the task of further remonstrance, she drew
a ludicrous picture of the magistrate and his clerk.--Inglewood
was--according to her description--a white-washed Jacobite; that is, one
who, having been long a non-juror, like most of the other gentlemen of the
country, had lately qualified himself to act as a justice, by taking the
oaths to Government. "He had done so," she said, "in compliance with the
urgent request of most of his brother squires, who saw, with regret, that
the palladium of silvan sport, the game-laws, were likely to fall into
disuse for want of a magistrate who would enforce them; the nearest
acting justice being the Mayor of Newcastle, and he, as being rather
inclined to the consumption of the game when properly dressed, than to
its preservation when alive, was more part