he village. Under the protection now
afforded by the presence of the judge, and the other officers of
justice--not to speak of the many strangers from the adjacent parts,
whom one cause or another had brought to the place--he had presumed to
exhibit his person with much more audacity and a more perfect freedom
from apprehension than he had ever shown in the same region before. He
now--for ever on the go--thrust himself fearlessly into every cot and
corner. No place escaped the searching analysis of his glance; and, in a
scrutiny so nice, it was not long before he had made the acquaintance of
everybody and everything at all worthy, in that region, to be known. He
could now venture to jostle Pippin with impunity; for, since the trial
in which he had so much blundered, the lawyer had lost no small portion
of the confidence and esteem of his neighbors. Accused of the
abandonment of his client--an offence particularly monstrous in the
estimation of those who are sufficiently interested to acquire a
personal feeling in such matters--and compelled, as he had been--a worse
feature still in the estimation of the same class--to "eat his own
words"--he had lost caste prodigiously in the last few days, and his
fine sayings lacked their ancient flavor in the estimation of his
neighbors. His speeches sunk below par along with himself; and the
pedler, in his contumelious treatment of the disconsolate jurist, simply
obeyed and indicated the direction of the popular opinion. One or two
rude replies, and a nudge which the elbow of Bunce, effected in the ribs
of the lawyer, did provoke the latter so far as to repeat his threat on
the subject of the prosecution for the horse; but the pedler snapped his
fingers in his face as he did so, and bade him defiance. He also
reminded Pippin of the certain malfeasances to which he had referred
previously, and the consciousness of the truth was sufficiently strong
and awkward to prevent his proceeding to any further measure of disquiet
with the offender. Thus, without fear, and with an audacity of which he
was not a little proud, Bunce perambulated the village and its
neighborhood, in a mood and with a deportment he had never ventured upon
before in that quarter.

He had a variety of reasons for lingering in the village seemingly in a
state of idleness. Bunce was a long-sighted fellow, and beheld the
promise which it held forth, at a distance, of a large and thriving
business in the neighborhood; and