rmine's name."

"I'll mention nobody's name. I shall only say that I and a friend of
mine were having a chat, and talking of one thing and another, we fell
a-wondering what would happen if a man were to survive a punishment
intended to kill him."

"That might serve. I don't mind if you do."

The law, in 1174, was much more dependent on the personal will of the
sovereign than it is now. The lawyer looked a little doubtful when
asked the question.

"Why," said he, "if the prisoner had survived by apparent miracle, the
chances are that he would be pardoned, as the probability would be that
his innocence was thus proved by visitation of God. I once knew of such
a case, where a woman was accused of murdering her husband; she held her
mute of malice at her trial, and was adjudged to suffer _peine forte et
dure_."

When a prisoner refused to plead, he was held to be "mute of malice."
The _peine forte et dure_, which was the recognised punishment for this
misdemeanour, was practically starvation to death. In earlier days it
seems to have been pure starvation; but at a later period, the more
refined torture was substituted of allowing the unhappy man on alternate
days three mouthfuls of bread with no liquid, and three sips of water
with no food, for a term which the sufferer could not be expected to
survive. At a later time again, this was exchanged for heavyweights,
under which he was pressed to death.

"Strange to say," the lawyer went on, "the woman survived her sentence;
and this being an undoubted miracle, she received pardon to the laud of
God and the honour of His glorious mother, Dame Mary. [Such a case
really happened at Nottingham in 1357.] But if you were supposing a
case without any such miraculous intervention--"

"Oh, we weren't thinking of miracles, any way," answered Roscius.

"Then I should say the sentence would remain in force. There is of
course a faint possibility that it might not be put in force; but if the
man came to me for advice, I should not counsel him to build much upon
that. Especially if he happened to have an enemy."

"Well, it does not seem just, to my thinking, that a man should suffer a
penalty twice over."

"Just!" repeated the lawyer, with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders.
"Were you under the impression, Cousin Roscius, that law and justice
were interchangeable terms?"

"I certainly was," said Roscius.

"Then, you'd better get out of it," was the retort.

"I da