Johnnie lost his head, and
dropping on his knees confessed his guilt and begged his old friend
Lampard to have mercy on him and to overlook it for the sake of his wife
and children.
It was his first offence, but when he was taken from the lock-up at the
top of the village street to be conveyed to Salisbury, his friends and
neighbours who had gathered at the spot to witness his removal shook
their heads and doubted that Ingden would ever see him again. The
confession had made the case so simple a one that he had at once been
committed to take his trial at the Salisbury Assizes, and as the time
was near the constable had been ordered to convey the prisoner to the
town himself. Accordingly he engaged old Joe Blaskett, called Daddy in
the village, to take them in his pony cart. Daddy did not want the job,
but was talked or bullied into it, and there he now sat in his cart,
waiting in glum silence for his passengers; a bent old man of eighty,
with a lean, grey, bitter face, in his rusty cloak, his old rabbit-skin
cap drawn down over his ears, his white disorderly beard scattered over
his chest. The constable Lampard was a big, powerful man, with a great
round, good-natured face, but just now he had a strong sense of
responsibility, and to make sure of not losing his prisoner he
handcuffed him before bringing him out and helping him to take his seat
on the bottom of the cart.
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