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he neighbourhood to claim his wife. Everybody knew it before the inhabitants of Croker's Hall. And now, since yesterday afternoon, all Croker's Hall knew it, as well as the rest of the world. He was standing there close to the house, which stood a little back from the road, between nine and ten in the morning, as drunk as a lord. But I think his manner of drunkenness was perhaps in some respects different from that customary with lords. Though he had only one leg of the flesh, and one of wood, he did not tumble down, though he brandished in the air the stick with which he was accustomed to disport himself. A lord would, I think, have got himself taken to bed. But the Sergeant did not appear to have any such intention. He had come out on to the road from the yard into which the back-door of the house opened, and seemed to John Gordon as though, having been so far expelled, he was determined to be driven no further,--and he was accompanied, at a distance, by his wife. "Now, Timothy Baggett," began the unfortunate woman, "you may just take yourself away out of that, as fast as your legs can carry you, before the police comes to fetch you." "My legs! Whoever heared a fellow told of his legs when there was one of them wooden. And as for the perlice, I shall want the perlice to fetch my wife along with me. I ain't a-going to stir out of this place without Mrs B. I'm a hold man, and wants a woman to look arter me. Come along, Mrs B." Then he made a motion as though to run after her, still brandishing the stick in his hand. But she retreated, and he came down, seated on the pathway by the roadside, as though he had only accomplished an intended manoeuvre. "Get me a drop o' summat, Mrs B., and I don't mind if I stay here half an hour longer." Then he laughed loudly, nodding his head merrily at the bystanders,--as no lord under such circumstances certainly would have done. All this happened just as John Gordon came up to the corner of the road, from whence, by a pathway, turned the main entrance into Mr Whittlestaff's garden. He could not but see the drunken red-nosed man, and the old woman, whom he recognised as Mr Whittlestaff's servant, and a crowd of persons around, idlers out of Alresford, who had followed Sergeant Baggett up to the scene of his present exploits. Croker's Hall was not above a mile from the town, just where the town was beginning to become country, and where the houses all had gardens belonging to them, a
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