rviving servant, by whom he, or whoever it may have been, was
accidentally shot.

We are in a perfect tangle. On the other hand, it was never denied
that Curtis and John Wiltshire were in London together at the time of
Countess Fanny's flight: and Curtis Fakenham was one of the procession
of armed gentleman conducting her in her carriage, as they supposed; and
he was known to have started off, on the discovery of the cheat, with
horrible imprecations against Frenchwomen. It became known, too; that
horses of his were standing saddled in his innyard at midnight. And
more, Charles Dump the postillion was taken secretly to set eyes on
him as they wheeled him in his garden-walk, and he vowed it was the
identical gentleman. But this coming by and by to the ear of Curtis,
he had Charles Dump fetched over to confront him; and then the man made
oath that he had never seen Mr. Curtis Fakenham anywhere but there, in
his own house at Hollis! One does not really know what, to think of it.

This postillion made a small fortune. He was everywhere in request.
People were never tired of asking him how he behaved while the fight was
going on, and he always answered that he sat as close to his horse as he
could, and did not dream of dismounting; for, he said, 'he was a figure
on a horse, and naught when off it.' His repetition of the story, with
some adornments, and that same remark, made him the popular man of the
county; people said he might enter Parliament, and I think at one time
it was possible. But a great success is full of temptations. After being
hired at inns to fill them with his account of the battle, and tipped
by travellers from London to show the spot, he set up for himself as
innkeeper, and would have flourished, only he had contracted habits on
his rounds, and he fell to contradicting himself, so that he came to be
called Lying Charley; and the people of the country said it was 'he who
drained the Punch-Bowl, for though he helped to put the capital into it,
he took all the interest out of it.'

Yet we have the doctor of the village of Ipley, Dr. Cawthorne, a noted
botanist, assuring us of the absolute credibility of Charles Dump,
whom he attended in the poor creature's last illness, when Charles Dump
confessed he had lived in mortal terror of Squire Curtis, and had got
the trick of lying, through fear of telling the truth. Hence his ruin.

So he died delirious and contrite. Cawthorne, the great Turf man,
inherited a p