In a few minutes Squire Waldron, not very steady as to gait, or clear as to utterance, came out of the dining-parlor, followed by the brigadier, who was less coherent still.

The news of the murder of the coastguardsman, however, startled them both into sobriety; and the squire made less difficulty than Tregenna had expected about making out a warrant[66] for the apprehension of the one man whom he had tracked down.

[66]

“What’s his name, say you?” asked the squire, who had conducted his companions into the study, through the walls of which they could hear the stertorous snoring of the other guests, who had fallen asleep, whether upon or under the table Tregenna could only guess.

“I know only that he is called Tom,” replied Tregenna, who remembered that the parson had uttered that name.

“Ah, then ’twill be ‘Gardener Tom,’ as they call him, as fine a lad as ever you clapped eyes on,” almost sighed the squire, as he began to make out the warrant, not without erasures, in a decidedly ‘after-dinner’ handwriting. “Poor Tom, poor Tom! You will not have him moved to-night, general, and jolt a man in a fever across the marshes to Rye?”

“Egad, squire, since he will certainly be hanged, what signifies a jog more or less to his rascally bonesh?” retorted the brigadier ferociously.

The warrant made out, and the soldiers summoned from the servants’ hall, where they had been regaled by the squire’s command, the[67] lieutenant and the brigadier took leave of their host, and started from the house without loss of time, Tregenna keeping pace on foot with the officer’s charger, while the soldiers followed.

[67]

The brigadier was in the highest spirits, and was inclined to look down upon Tregenna’s capture, and upon his methods of work.

“’S’no use, my lad, no mortal use,” he said, laying down the law with vigor, and trying to sit straight upon the saddle so that his gesticulating arm should not overbalance him, “to try t’ get on in anything without th’ women! Now, I alwaysh make up to th’ women!” he went on, with a wink and a roguish leer; “and they’re going to pull me through thish time, as they’ve done a hundred timesh afore! Did you see me with that lass?” he went on, resting his hand upon his hip, and cocking his hat knowingly. “That lass that went up the village with me?”

“A 

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