thered themselves together, the shepherd, as the
man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these
treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their
eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, were
extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this more rational order
they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile,
affording some shelter to any person who had sought it; but the party
perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they
wandered apart, and after an interval closed together again to report
progress.

At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely ash,
the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a
passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one
side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the man
they were in quest of; his outline being well defined against the sky
beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and faced him.

'Your money or your life!' said the constable sternly to the still
figure.

'No, no,' whispered John Pitcher. ''Tisn't our side ought to say that.
That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the
law.'

'Well, well,' replied the constable impatiently; 'I must say something,
mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your
mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too!--Prisoner at the bar,
surrender, in the name of the Father--the Crown, I mane!'

The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, and,
giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, he
strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third
stranger; but his trepidation had in a great measure gone.

'Well, travellers,' he said, 'did I hear ye speak to me?'

'You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!' said the
constable. 'We arrest 'ee on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge
jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbours,
do your duty, and seize the culpet!'

On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not
another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the search-
party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on all
sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd's cottage.

It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shin