Mr. Signsealer was in attendance, much to the real,
though concealed, satisfaction of Squire Mountmeadow. Their worships
were seated like two consuls before the table, which Mr. Signsealer
had duly arranged with writing materials and various piles of
calf-bound volumes. Squire Mountmeadow then, arranging his
countenance, announced that the bench was prepared, and mine host was
instructed forthwith to summon the constable and his charge, together
with Peter and the ostler as witnesses. There was a rush among some of
the crowd who were nighest the scene to follow the prisoner into the
room; and, sooth to say, the great Mountmeadow was much too enamoured
of his own self-importance to be by any means a patron of close courts
and private hearings; but then, though he loved his power to be
witnessed, he was equally desirous that his person should be
reverenced. It was his boast that he could keep a court of quarter
sessions as quiet as a church; and now, when the crowd rushed in with
all those sounds of tumult incidental to such a movement, it required
only Mountmeadow slowly to rise, and drawing himself up to the full
height of his gaunt figure, to knit his severe brow, and throw one
of his peculiar looks around the chamber, to insure a most awful
stillness.
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