s knowledge and this view that you surrendered?"

Ralph folded his arms across his breast and bowed.

The silence could be borne no longer. The murmurs of the spectators
broke into a wild tumult of cheers, like the tossing of many waters;
like the roar and lash of mighty winds that rise and swell, then ebb
and surge again.

The usher of the court had not yet suppressed the applause, when it
was observed that a disturbance of another kind had arisen near the
door. A young woman with a baby in her arms was crushing her way in
past the javelin man stationed there, and was craning her neck to
catch sight of the prisoner above the dense throng that occupied every
inch of the floor.

"Let me have but a glance at him--one glance--for the dear God's sake
let me but see him--only once--only for a moment."

The judge called for silence, and the officer was hurrying the woman
away when Ralph turned his face full towards the door.

"I see him now," said the woman. "He's not my husband. No," she added,
"but I've seen him before somewhere."

"Where, my good woman? Where have you seen him before the day?"

This was whispered in her ear by a man who had struggled his way to
her side.

"Does he come from beyond Gaskarth?" she asked.

"Why, why?"

"This commotion ill befits the gravity of a trial of such grave
concernment," said one of the judges in an austere tone.

In another moment the woman and her eager interlocutor had left the
court together.

There was then a brief consultation between the occupants of the
bench.

"The pardon is binding," said one; "if it were otherwise it were the
hardest case that could be for half the people of England."

"Yet the King came back without conditions," replied the other.

There was a general bustle in the court. The crier proclaimed silence.

"The prisoner stands remanded for one week."

Then Ralph was removed from the bar.

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE FIERY HAND.

They drove Robbie Anderson that night to the house of the old woman
with whom he lodged, but their errand was an idle one. Reuben Thwaite
jumped from the cart and rapped at the door. Old 'Becca Rudd opened
it, held a candle over her head, and peered into the darkness. When
she heard what sick guest they had brought her, she trembled from head
to foot, and cried to them not to shorten the life of a poor old soul
whose days were numbered.

"Nay, nay; take him away, take him away," she said.

"Art daft, or what