He offered to deposit a sum equal to the recognisance of the knight's bail; but this was rejected, as an expedient contrary to the practice of the courts.

He sent for the attorney of the village, to whom he had been a good customer; but the lawyer was hunting evidence in another county.

The exciseman presented himself as a surety; but he not being an housekeeper, was not accepted.

Divers cottagers, who depended on farmer Prickle, were successively refused, because they could not prove that they had paid scot and lot, and parish taxes.
The farmer, finding himself thus forlorn, and in imminent danger of visiting the inside of a prison, was seized with a paroxysm of rage, during which he inveighed against the bench, reviled the two adventurers errant, declared that he believed, and would lay a wager of twenty guineas, that he had more money in his pocket than e'er a man in the company; and in the space of a quarter of an hour swore forty oaths, which the justice did not fail to number.

"Before we proceed to other matters," said Mr.Elmy, "I order you to pay forty shillings for the oaths you have sworn, otherwise I will cause you to be set in the stocks without further ceremony." Prickle, throwing down a couple of guineas, with two execrations more to make up the sum, declared that he could afford to pay for swearing as well as e'er a justice in the county, and repeated his challenge of the wager, which our adventurer now accepted, protesting, at the same time, that it was not a step taken from any motive of pride, but entirely with a view to punish an insolent plebeian, who could not otherwise be chastised without a breach of the peace.