hem. Mr.
Ablethorpe was still silent. So, being bound by my promise to him, I
judged it best to hold my peace also.

But in spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, the country
continued in a ferment. The deaths of Mad Jeremy and Mr. Stennis,
instead of quieting public clamour, made the mystery still more
mysterious. The weird sisters remained at liberty, and the wildest
reports flew about. None would venture out of doors after dark.
Children were told impossible tales of Spring-heeled Jacks in
petticoats, who (much less judicious than the usual bogie--"Black Man,"
"Hornie Nick," the lord of the utter and middle darkness), confounded
the innocent with the guilty, and made off with good children as
readily as with children the most advanced in depravity.

Of course, knowing what I knew, I had none of these fears. I
understood why Mr. Ablethorpe had arranged for the carrying off of
Honorine, Camilla, and Sidonia. They were, I knew, housed with the
"Little Sisters of the Weak-Minded." But to me, as to others, Aphra
remained the stumbling-block.

But even this was soon to be removed.

On March the sixteenth, one month and five days after the burning of
the house of Deep Moat Grange, the sheriff's court of Bordershire was
held in the courthouse at Longtown. My father and I, with many people
from Breckonside, were there, and practically all Bewick to a man. For
great interest was felt in a case of night-poaching in which these two
firm friends, Davie Elshiner and Peter Kemp, officially had repeatedly
given each other the lie.

"There is rank perjury somewhere," commented the sheriff, "but as I
cannot bring it home to any particular person, I must discharge the
accused."

A certain subdued hush of various movement ran along the benches, as
the listeners got ready to go. Sheriff Graham Duffus, a red-faced,
jolly man, was conferring in hushed tones with the fiscal or public
prosecutor, when two tall young men in irreproachable clerical attire
pushed their way up the central passage, kept clear for witnesses by a
couple of burly policemen at either end. A woman walked between them.
She was tall, veiled, angular, and bore herself singularly erect, even
with an air of pride.

The murmur of the people changed to an awe-stricken hush, as the woman
lifted her veil.

It was Aphra Orrin, and she stood there between Mr. De la Poer and Mr.
Ablethorpe!

"My lord," said Mr. Ablethorpe, in a clear and dominating