Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/101

 but my Heels sticking up out of the Mud for some ten Minutes while he enjoyed his Laugh.

My Attention was now called to a Company of rough Fellows that had fallen to upon a new Fence near at Hand which my old Friend had lately put up; whereat Sir Ogre very properly requested a Constable that was passing to take his Note-book and jot down upon it the Names of these Fellows and, upon my inquiring of the Course which he purposed to take in regard to them, he addressed to me the following Words:—

"It's my Purpose to carry these pestilent Knaves and most impudent Ruffians before the Bench of Justices at Brentford: for you must know that these Fellows are within their legal Rights in what they now do but these good Justices of Brentford have so nice and subtile a Sense of Logic, that they will, for all they must needs acquit the Defendants of all Offence, yet put upon them a fine for the Offence which they have not committed; by which means these Brentford Justices have acquired a very favourable high Reputation among all Men of Sense."

At this I fell into a most deep pleasing Speculation upon the Wisdom of these Brentford Justices, who indeed—however it may seem to the ignorant and thoughtless—carry out the very Spirit of our Laws: for the Purpose of all our Laws is that Men shall put an Action the one on the other, and pay the Costs of it; he that shall be able to pay more Costs than his Fellows being adjudged in the Right: wherefore it is reasonable and fitting that One who hath broken a Fence, and is adjudged in the Right in so doing, shall pay for it by way of a Testimony or Sign that he is in the Right. For as a Man cannot be adjudged in the Right except he pay; so he that pays not must surely be in the Wrong; which no Man would desire to be.

We now began to come at every Turn upon this or that Company of lewd Fellows that would be engaged either in tearing up a Wire that Sir Ogre had planted; or in breaking down a Fence; or in pulling down some Notice-Board of his that warned all and sundry from passing by that Way, or advertised a Piece of Land to be let on building Leases; and all this at Times with no little Stir and Clamour and cracking of Woodwork. Nay, I marked a certain Group that had made a Bonfire of some Notice-Boards; and these Fellows had the Effrontery to invite the good Knight to warm himself by it with unfitting Sarcasm: all of which I could perceive caused