[Transcriber's note: A chapter number was skipped in the original book.]
CHAPTER XXIX.
ARREST.
The high-sheriff made his appearance before his early and well-known
visiters with a desperate air of composure and unconcern, the effort to
attain which was readily perceptible to his companions. He could not, in
the first place, well get rid of those terrors of the domestic world
from which their interruption had timely shielded him; nor, on the other
hand, could he feel altogether assured that the visit now paid him would
not result in the exaction of some usurious interest. He had recently,
as we have said, as much through motives of worldly as spiritual policy,
become an active religionist, in a small way, in and about the section
of country in which he resided; and knowing that his professions were in
some sort regarded with no small degree of doubt and suspicion by some
of his brethren holding the same faith, he felt the necessity of playing
a close and cautious game in all his practices.
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