the mansion,
gladly sub-let it. The county authorities, having acquired the
lease, did indeed make certain structural adaptations, providing
tolerable quarters for the local constabulary, with a lockup in the
cellarage (which was commodious), but apart from this did little to
arrest the general decay of the building. In particular, the
disrepair of the old dining-room, where the magistrates now held
Session, had become a public scandal. The old wall-paper dropped in
tatters, the ceiling showed patches where the plaster had broken from
the battens, rats had eaten holes in the green baize table-cloth, and
the whole place smelt of dry-rot. From the wall behind the
magistrates' table, in the place where nations more superstitious
than ours suspend a crucifix, an atrocious portrait of the late
Squire Nicholas surveyed the desolated scene of his former carousals.
An inscription at the base of the frame commemorated him as one who
had consistently "Done Right to all manner of People after the Laws
and Usages of the Realm, without Fear or Favour, Affection or
Ill-will."

Beneath this portrait, on the second Wednesday in June, 1886, were
gathered no fewer than six Justices of the Peace, a number the more
astonishing because Petty Sessions chanced to clash with the annual
meeting of the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Society, held that year
at the neighbouring market town of Tregarrick. Now, the reason of
this full bench was at once simple and absurd, and had caused
merriment not unmixed with testiness in the magistrates' private
room. Each Justice, counting on his neighbour's delinquency, had
separately resolved to pay a sacrifice to public duty, and to drop in
to dispose of the business of Sessions before proceeding to the Show.
The charge-sheet, be it noted, was abnormally light: it comprised one
single indictment.

"Good Lord!" growled Admiral Trist, Chairman of the Bench, Master of
the famous Gantick Harriers. "Six of us to hear a case of sleeping
out!"

"Who's the defendant?" asked Sir Felix Felix-Williams. "'Thomas
Edwards'--Don't know the name in these parts."

"I doubt if he knows it himself, Sir Felix," answered Mr. Batty, the
Justices' Clerk. "The Inspector tells me it's a tramping fellow the
police picked up two nights ago. He has been in lock-up ever since."

"Then why the devil couldn't they have sent round and fished up one
of us--or a couple--to deal with the case out of hand?"

"Damned shame, the