ore your face; and though, as he
expressed it, you might be mortal sure of a man, you could not identify
him upon oath, and the party he had taken for Tom Bakewell, and could
have sworn to, might have been the young gentleman present, especially as
he was ready to swear it upon oath.

So ended the Bantam.

No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up from his chair, and
made a fine effort to lift him out of the room from the point of his toe.
He failed, and sank back groaning with the pain of the exertion and
disappointment.

"They're liars, every one!" he cried. "Liars, perj'rers, bribers, and
c'rrupters!--Stop!" to the Bantam, who was slinking away. "You've done
for yerself already! You swore to it!"

"A din't!" said the Bantam, doggedly.

"You swore to't!" the farmer vociferated afresh.

The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, and still affirmed
that he did not; a double contradiction at which the farmer absolutely
raged in his chair, and was hoarse, as he called out a third time that
the Bantam had sworn to it.

"Noa!" said the Bantam, ducking his poll. "Noa!" he repeated in a lower
note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic enjoyment of his
profound casuistical quibble worked at his jaw:

"Not up'n o-ath!" he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and an angular
jerk of the elbow.

Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask him what he
thought of England's peasantry after the sample they had there. Richard
would have preferred not to laugh, but his dignity gave way to his sense
of the ludicrous, and he let fly a shout. The farmer was in no laughing
mood. He turned a wide eye back to the door, "Lucky for'm," he exclaimed,
seeing the Bantam had vanished, for his fingers itched to break that
stubborn head. He grew very puffy, and addressed Richard solemnly:

"Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You've been a-tampering with my witness.
It's no use denyin'! I say y' 'ave, sir! You, or some of ye. I don't care
about no Feverel! My witness there has been bribed. The Bantam's been
bribed," and he shivered his pipe with an energetic thump on the
table--"bribed! I knows it! I could swear to't!"--

"Upon oath?" Richard inquired, with a grave face.

"Ay, upon oath!" said the farmer, not observing the impertinence.

"I'd take my Bible oath on't! He's been corrupted, my principal witness!
Oh! it's dam cunnin', but it won't do the trick. I'll transport Tom
Bakewell, sure as