uded (calculating by time) that
I must be getting near to the town, when I suddenly heard the steps of
the men close behind me.

Before I could look round, one of them (the man by whom I had been
followed in London) passed rapidly on my left side and hustled me with
his shoulder. I had been more irritated by the manner in which he and
his companion had dogged my steps all the way from Old Welmingham than
I was myself aware of, and I unfortunately pushed the fellow away
smartly with my open hand. He instantly shouted for help. His
companion, the tall man in the gamekeeper's clothes, sprang to my right
side, and the next moment the two scoundrels held me pinioned between
them in the middle of the road.

The conviction that a trap had been laid for me, and the vexation of
knowing that I had fallen into it, fortunately restrained me from
making my position still worse by an unavailing struggle with two men,
one of whom would, in all probability, have been more than a match for
me single-handed. I repressed the first natural movement by which I
had attempted to shake them off, and looked about to see if there was
any person near to whom I could appeal.

A labourer was at work in an adjoining field who must have witnessed
all that had passed. I called to him to follow us to the town. He
shook his head with stolid obstinacy, and walked away in the direction
of a cottage which stood back from the high-road. At the same time
the men who held me between them declared their intention of charging
me with an assault. I was cool enough and wise enough now to make no
opposition. "Drop your hold of my arms," I said, "and I will go with
you to the town." The man in the gamekeeper's dress roughly refused.
But the shorter man was sharp enough to look to consequences, and not
to let his companion commit himself by unnecessary violence. He made a
sign to the other, and I walked on between them with my arms free.

We reached the turning in the road, and there, close before us, were
the suburbs of Knowlesbury. One of the local policemen was walking
along the path by the roadside. The men at once appealed to him. He
replied that the magistrate was then sitting at the town-hall, and
recommended that we should appear before him immediately.

We went on to the town-hall. The clerk made out a formal summons, and
the charge was preferred against me, with the customary exaggeration
and the customary perversion of the truth on such