been much disturbed by his
little brother's pranks--could only shake his head with tears in his
eyes, and, sitting down on the roll of bedding, take him on his knee and
try to console him with the hope of liberty in a few days.

He had tried to obtain the boy's release on the plea of his extreme
youth, but the authorities were hotly exasperated, and would hear of no
mercy. The whole of the rioters were to be tried three days hence, and
there was no doubt that some would be made an example of; the only
question was, how many?

Master Headley closely interrogated his own two lads, and was evidently
sorely anxious about his namesake, who, he feared, might be recognised
by Alderman Mundy and brought forward as a ringleader of the
disturbance; nor did he feel at all secure that the plea that he had no
enmity to the foreigners, but had actually tried to defend Lucas and
Abenali, would be attended to for a moment, though Lucas Hansen had
promised to bear witness of it. Giles looked perfectly stunned at the
time, unable to take in the idea, but at night Stephen was wakened on
the pallet that they shared with little Jasper, by hearing him weeping
and sobbing for his mother at Salisbury.

Time lagged on till the 4th of May. Some of the poor boys whiled away
their time with dreary games in the yard, sometimes wrestling, but more
often gambling with the dice, that one or two happened to possess, for
the dinners that were provided for the wealthier, sometimes even betting
on what the sentences would be, and who would be hanged, or who escape.

Poor lads, they did not, for the most part, realise their real danger,
but Stephen was more and more beset with home-sick longing for the
glades and thickets of his native forest, and would keep little Jasper
and even Giles for an hour together telling of the woodland adventures
of those happy times, shutting his eyes to the grim stone walls, and
trying to think himself among the beeches, hollies, cherries, and
hawthorns, shining in the May sun! Giles and he were close friends now,
and with little Jasper, said their Paters and Aves together, that they
might be delivered from their trouble. At last, on the 4th, the whole
of the prisoners were summoned roughly into the court, where harsh-
looking men-at-arms proceeded to bind them together in pairs to be
marched through the streets to the Guildhall. Giles and Stephen would
naturally have been put together, but poor little Jasper cried o