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