a
judge waiting.

He heard their voices now. Those rake-hell counsellors were laughing,
and bantering, and sparring after their wont. The carriage swayed and
jerked, as one got in, and then again as the other followed. The door
clapped, and the coach was now jogging and rumbling over the pavement.
The Judge was a little bit sulky. He did not care to sit up and open his
eyes. Let them suppose he was asleep. He heard them laugh with more
malice than good-humour, he thought, as they observed it. He would give
them a d----d hard knock or two when they got to his door, and till then
he would counterfeit his nap.

The clocks were chiming twelve. Beller and Thavies were silent as
tombstones. They were generally loquacious and merry rascals.

The Judge suddenly felt himself roughly seized and thrust from his
corner into the middle of the seat, and opening his eyes, instantly he
found himself between his two companions.

Before he could blurt out the oath that was at his lips, he saw that
they were two strangers--evil-looking fellows, each with a pistol in his
hand, and dressed like Bow Street officers.

The Judge clutched at the check-string. The coach pulled up. He stared
about him. They were not among houses; but through the windows, under a
broad moonlight, he saw a black moor stretching lifelessly from right to
left, with rotting trees, pointing fantastic branches in the air,
standing here and there in groups, as if they held up their arms and
twigs like fingers, in horrible glee at the Judge's coming.

A footman came to the window. He knew his long face and sunken eyes. He
knew it was Dingly Chuff, fifteen years ago a footman in his service,
whom he had turned off at a moment's notice, in a burst of jealousy, and
indicted for a missing spoon. The man had died in prison of the jail-fever.

The Judge drew back in utter amazement. His armed companions signed
mutely; and they were again gliding over this unknown moor.

The bloated and gouty old man, in his horror considered the question of
resistance. But his athletic days were long over. This moor was a
desert. There was no help to be had. He was in the hands of strange
servants, even if his recognition turned out to be a delusion, and they
were under the command of his captors. There was nothing for it but
submission, for the present.

Suddenly the coach was brought nearly to a standstill, so that the
prisoner saw an ominous sight from the window.

It was a giga