ng. "Johnny, my boy, I want you at the Hall; take hold of my
stirrup, and come along with me."

The boy, with every symptom of reluctance, demurred, pleading a
promise to return to his mother. Then he suddenly perceived a look in
the gentleman's eye, which gave him a frantic, unreasoned desire to
bolt at once, and at any cost. But the horseman anticipated the
thought; bending in the saddle, he reached out his arm and seized the
urchin by the collar.

"Why, you little devil, what is the matter with you?" he asked,
grinning ominously into the chubby, terrified face. "It strikes me it
is time you and I should come to a little understanding. Any more
letters from the smuggler to-day, eh? Ah, would you, you young idiot!"
and Mr. Landale's fingers gave a sudden twist to the collar, which
strangled the rising yell. "Listen, Johnny," tightening his grasp
gradually until the brown face grew scarlet, then purple, and the
goggling eyes seemed to start out of their sockets; "that is what it
feels like to be hanged. They squeeze your neck so; and they leave you
dangling at the end of a rope till you are dead, dead, dead, and the
crows come and eat you. Do you want to be hanged?"

For some moments more he kept the writhing lad under the torture; then
loosening his grip, without however relinquishing his hold, allowed
him to taste once more the living air.

"Do you want to be hanged, Johnny Shearman?" he asked again gravely.
The lad burst into gasping sobs, and looked up at his captor with an
agony of fear in his bloodshot eyes. "No," continued Mr. Landale, "I
am sure you don't, eh?" with a renewed ominous contraction of the
hand. "It's a fearful thing, is hanging. And yet many a lad, hardly
older than you, has been hanged for less than you are doing.
Magistrates can get people hanged, and I am a magistrate, you know.
_Stop that noise!_"

"Now," continued the gentleman, "there are one or two little things I
want to know myself, Johnny, and it's just possible I might let you
off for this time if by chance you were able to tell them to me. So,
for your sake, I hope you may be."

He could see that the boy's mind was now completely turned with
fright.

"If you were to try to run away again I should know you had secrets to
keep from me, and then, Johnny Shearman, it would go hard with you
indeed! Now come along beside me, up to the Hall."

Quite certain of his prey, he released him, and, setting his horse to
a trot, smiled to no