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The officers, having now got on the scent, were like sagacious hounds for pursuing it forthwith, and also thought proper the sailor should accompany them; and, to prevent all suspicion, resolved he should now change his habit; they therefore dressed him in a ruffled shirt, a fine suit of broad cloth belonging to the collector, and put a gold-laced hat on his head; then, mounting him on a fine black mare, away they rode together, being in all seven or eight of them; they that night reached Newton-Bushel, and slept at the Bull; nothing was wanting to make the night jovial; the greatest delicacies the town afforded were served up at their table, the best liquors were broached for them, and music, with its enlivening charms, crowned the banquet; the officers’ hearts were quite open and cheerful, as they already enjoyed, in imagination, all the booty they were to seize on the morrow.
He then inquired when she heard from his wife, who informed him, to his great joy, that both his wife and daughter were there a few days before, and were going towards Newton-Bushel; but they had given over all thoughts of seeing him any more, as they thought him dead. He now set forward immediately for Newton-Bushel. Calling at Lord Clifford’s in his way, he was told by Mrs.
Ratcliffe, the housekeeper, and Mr. Though it was then night, our hero, impatient of seeing his wife and daughter, set forward for Newton-Bushel, where he arrived late in the night. Going directly to his usual quarters, he found them all in bed, and calling out to the woman of the house, his wife, hearing his voice, immediately leaped out of bed, crying, it was her poor Bampfylde.
This appeared quite right to the collector; he therefore contented himself with fastening his horse to the garden rails, and proceeded with the rest of the officers, in great form, to search the dog-kennel, coal-house, dove-house, stables, and all other suspicious places, expecting every minute to see the informing sailor, who by this time had nearly got back to Newton-Bushel, having turned his horse’s head that way as soon as he was out of sight of the collector.
He next called upon parson Richards, at Coombe, in Tinney, where he got a shilling and a shift. Having thus succeeded in his new adventure, he returned to his quarters at mother Upton’s, in Newton-Bushel, where he divided the profits of the day with his good cousin Betty, and also passed the night very merrily with her.
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