er." Smith felt hopelessly
in his pocket, and then looked at her vacantly. "Thee drunken, nasty
old----," said the infuriated woman, almost unconsciously lifting her
hand. Perhaps it was that action of hers which suggested the same to his
mind, which was in a mechanical state. Perhaps the stinging words of
last night had at last sunk deep enough to scarify his self-esteem.
Perhaps he did not at that moment fully remember the strength of his own
mighty arm. But he struck her, and she fell. Her forehead came in
contact with the cradle, in which the youngest boy was sleeping, and
woke him with a cry. She lay quite still. Smith sat stupidly down on the
old milking-stool, with his elbows on his knees. The shrill voice of his
wife, as she met him at the door, had brought more than one female
neighbour to the window; they saw what happened, and they were there in
a minute. Martha was only insensible, and they soon brought her to, but
the mark on the temple remained.

Five days afterwards John Smith, agricultural labourer, aged forty-five,
stood in the dock to answer a charge of assaulting his wife. There were
five magistrates on the Bench--two large landowners, a baronet in the
chair, and two clergymen. Martha Smith hung her head as they placed her
in the witness-box, and tried to evade kissing the Book, but the police
saw that that formality was complied with. The Clerk asked her what she
had to complain of. No answer. "Come, tell us all about it," said the
eldest of the magistrates in a fatherly tone of voice. Still silence.
"Well, how did you get that mark on your forehead?" asked the Clerk. No
answer. "Speak up!" cried a shrill voice in the body of the court. It
was one of Martha's cronies, who was immediately silenced by the police;
but the train had been fired. Martha would not fail before another
woman. But she did not commence about the assault. It was the drink she
spoke of, nothing but the drink; and as she talked of that she warmed
with her subject and her grievances, and forgot the old love for her
husband, and her former hesitation, and placed that vice in all its
naked deformity and hideous results in plain but burning words before
the Bench. Had she been the cleverest advocate she could not have
prepared the ground for her case better. This tale of drink predisposed
their minds against the defendant. Only the Clerk, wedded to legal
forms, fidgeted under this eloquence, and seized the first pause: "But
now, how a