I lost my purse
in the field, as I found after; but about the big coat--as I was saying,
I just lifted it off the ground to see would it fit me; and, as I swung
it round, something, plase your honour, hit me a great knock on the
shins: it was in the pocket of the coat, whatever it was, I knew; so I
looks into the pocket to see what was it, plase your honour, and out I
pulls a hammer and a dog-collar: it was a wonder, both together, they did
not break my shins entirely: but it's no matter for my shins now; so,
before the boy came down, I just out of idleness spelt out to myself the
name that was upon the collar: there were two names, plase your honour,
and out of the first there were so many letters hammered out I could make
nothing of it at all, at all; but the other name was plain enough to
read, any way, and it was Hill, plase your honour's honour, as sure as
life: Hill, now."

This story was related in tones and gestures which were so new and
strange to English ears and eyes, that even the solemnity of our verger
gave way to laughter.

Mr. Marshal sent a summons for the pawnbroker, that he might learn from
him how he came by the dog-collar. The pawnbroker, when he found from
Mr. Marshal that he could by no other means save himself from being
committed to prison, confessed that the collar had been sold to him by
Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies.

A warrant was immediately despatched for his majesty; and Mr. Hill was a
good deal alarmed by the fear of its being known in Hereford that he was
on the point of swearing examinations against an innocent man upon the
evidence of a dog-stealer and a gipsy.

Bampfylde the Second made no sublime appearance when he was brought
before Mr. Marshal, nor could all his astrology avail upon this occasion.
The evidence of the pawnbroker was so positive as to the fact of his
having sold to him the dog-collar, that there was no resource left for
Bampfylde but an appeal to Mr. Hill's mercy. He fell on his knees, and
confessed that it was he who stole the dog, which used to bark at him at
night so furiously, that he could not commit certain petty depredations
by which, as much as by telling fortunes, he made his livelihood.

"And so," said Mr. Marshal, with a sternness of manner which till now he
had never shown, "to screen yourself, you accused an innocent man; and by
your vile arts would have driven him from Hereford, and have set two
families for ever at variance, to con