Gravesand
with a barouche-and-four waiting for them at the top of the hill.

Bertram was placed in the carriage; and Sampson took his seat by his
side; Kilmary mounting Sampson's horse. By this time it was four
o'clock; and Alderman Gravesand directed the whole party to push
forward at their utmost speed; "it was his intention to carry the
prisoner to Walladmor Castle nearly thirty miles distant; and he wished
to be through Machynleth before the light failed."

"Would his worship then go through the town?" asked Sampson: "might it
not be better to send forward with orders for horses to meet them in
the outskirts, and avoid the town by making a little circuit?"

"No:" this proposal the Alderman rejected, as he would have done any
other which looked like a compromise of the magisterial dignity or a
concession to the popular spirit. Mr. Gravesand was a man who doated on
what he called energy and vigour; others called it tyranny and the
spirit of domineering. Of Lord Chesterfield's golden maxim--_Suaviter
in modo, fortiter in re_--he attended so earnestly to the latter half
that he generally forgot the former. And upon the present occasion he
was resolved to parade his contempt for "the jacobinical populace" of
Machynleth by carrying his prisoner boldly through the midst of them.

The fact is--that the populace of Machynleth were not Jacobinical, nor
ever showed any disposition to insubordination unless in behalf of
smuggling (which on this coast was a matter of deep interest to the
poor man's comforts), or in cases where Alderman Gravesand was
concerned. The Lord Lieutenant, whom they loved and reverenced, could
at all times calm them by a word; and any inferior magistrate, who
would take the least pains to cultivate their good will, was sure of
finding them in all ordinary cases reasonable and accessible to
persuasion. But for Alderman Gravesand,--who had never missed an
opportunity of expressing his hatred and affected contempt for them,
they were determined on showing him that there was no love lost between
them: right or wrong, in every case they gave him as much trouble as
they possibly could. And in the present case, which was supposed to be
an arrest for some participation in the smuggler's affair of the
funeral, they had one motive more than was needed to sharpen the spirit
of resistance to the worshipful gentleman.

CHAPTER XIV.

That when the people, which had the