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"I don't know the man's name, your Worship: but he's yonder, there, in a striped shirt open at the neck, with a little round hat on the back of his head; and, what's more, I see'd him do it." "Then take down his description, John Sprott, and write that at the words 'Our sovereign Lord' he shied a lump of muck." John Sprott pulled out a note-book and entered the offence.
"I will not admit it, at any rate, Mr. Roby." "But I don't doubt Monogram is as careful as any one else to get the best cook he can, and takes a good deal of trouble about his wine too. Mongrober is very unfair about that champagne. It came out of Madame Cliquot's cellars before the war, and I gave Sprott and Burlinghammer 110s. for it." "Indeed!"
This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of his own motion made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss Drummond's mails, and even send a porter for them to the inn. I advanced him to that effect a dollar or two to be a cover, and he gave me an acknowledgment in writing of the sum.
Though I will never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places hereabouts are very pretty. But our country is the best yet." "I wish we could say as much for our own folk," says I, recalling Sprott and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.
The tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away at an old kettle, with a little fire burning in front of him, and the donkey hard by, indulging in a placid doze. Mr. Sprott looked up as Lenny passed, nodded kindly, and said, "Good evenin', Lenny: glad to hear you be so 'spectably sitivated with Mounseer."
Just in the last field, as he looked over the hedge, he saw Leonard accosted by a gentleman of comely mien and important swagger. That gentleman soon left the young man, and came, whistling loud, up the path, and straight towards the tinker. Mr. Sprott looked round, but the hedge was too neat to allow of a good hiding-place, so he put a bold front on it, and stepped forth like a man.
"A man in my position, sir, should have the eye of an eagle; instead of which on all public occasions I have to rely on John Sprott. My good woman" he turned to Miss Whiteaway "would you mind taking a glance out of window and telling me what has become of John Sprott?"
Leonard, who had been thrown into grave thought by the history of Sprott and the village genius, now pressing the parson's hand, asked permission to wait on him before Mr. Dale quitted London; and was about to withdraw, when the parson, gently detaining him, said, "No; don't leave me yet, Leonard, I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. I shall be at leisure shortly.
I don't presume to say that there was cause and effect in what happened that night, but it was what is called "a curious coincidence" that that night one of Richard Avenel's ricks was set on fire, and that that day he had called Mr. Sprott an incendiary. Mr. Sprott was a man of a very high spirit, and did not forgive an insult easily.
Say, you didn't make an extra good witness for the defence, else you'd have made 'em understand that you weren't the enemy spy they took you for. Pity you never mentioned the name of Gideon Birkenshaw, or of Buckskin Jack, or even of your own father. Simon Sprott would sure have tumbled to your innocence." "Dare say," acknowledged Rube.
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