The Shadow of a Crime Part 54

"I hear a foot on the stair." A man entered the shop.

"No use, none," said the new-comer. "It's wasted labor talking to Master Wilfrey."

The tone was one of vexation.

"Did ye tell him what I heard about Justice Hide and his carryings on at Newcastle?"

"Ey, and I told 'im he'd never bring it off with Hide on the bench."

"And what did the chiel say to it?"

"'Tut,' he said, says he, 'Millet is wi' 'im on the circuit, and he'll see the law's safe on treason.'"

"So he will not touch the other indictment?"

"'It's no use,' says he, 'the man's sure to fall for treason,' he says, 'and it's all botherment trying to force me to indict 'im for murder.'"

"Force him! Ha! ha! that's good, that is; force him, eh?"

The speaker renewed his attentions to the fire.

"He'll be beaten," he added,--"he'll be beaten, will Master Wilfrey.

With Hide oh the bench there'll be no conviction for treason. And then the capital charge will go to the wall, and Ray will get away scot free."

"It baffles me yet aboot Ray, his giving himself up."

"Shaf, man! Will ye never see through the trick? It was to stand for treason and claim the pardon, or be fined, or take a year in Doomsdale, and escape the gallows. He's a cunning taistrel. He'll do aught to save his life."

"You're wrong there; I cannot but say you're wrong there. I know the man, and as I've told you there's nothing in the world he dare not do.

Why, would you credit it, I saw 'im one day--"

"Tut, haud yer tongue. Ye'd see him tremble one day if this sheriff of yours were not flayt by his own shadow. Ye'd see him on Haribee; aye, and maybe ye _will_ see him there yet, sheriff or no sheriff."

This was said with a bitterness indicative of fierce and deadly hatred.

Shifting uneasily under the close gaze of his companion, the other said,--

"What for do you look at me like that? I've no occasion to love him, have I?"

"Nor I, nor I," said the first speaker, his face distorted with evil pa.s.sions; "and you shall spit on his grave yet, Master Scroope, that you shall; and dance on it till it does yer soul good; you shall, you shall, sheriff or none."

Just then a flourish of trumpets fell on the ear. Conversation was interrupted while the men, with the bookseller, stepped to the door.

Numbers of townspeople were crowding into the Market Place.

Immediately afterwards there came at a swift pace through Scotch Street a gayly bedecked carriage, with outriders in gold lace and a trumpeter riding in front.

"The judges--going through to King's Arms Lane," observed the bookseller.

"What o'clock do the 'sizes start, Mr. Pengelly?" asked a loiterer outside.

"Ten in the morning, that's when the grand jury sit," the bookseller answered.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII. PEINE FORTE ET DURE.

The court was densely packed at ten next morning. Every yard of available s.p.a.ce was thronged with people. The crown court lay on the west of the Town Hall. It was a large square chamber without galleries. Rude oak, hewn with the axe straight from the tree, formed the rafters and princ.i.p.als of the roofs. The windows were small, and cast a feeble light. A long table like a block of granite, covered with a faded green cloth and having huge carved legs, stood at one end of the court, and stretched almost from side to side. On a dais over this table sat the two judges in high-backed chairs, deeply carved and black. There was a stout rail at one end of the table, and behind it were steps leading to a chamber below. This was the bar, and an officer of the court stood at one side of it. Exactly opposite it were three rows of seats on graduated levels. This was the jury box. Ranged in front of the table were the counsel for the King, the clerk of the court, and two or three lawyers. An ancient oak chest, ribbed with iron and secured by several ma.s.sive padlocks, stood on the table.

The day was cold. A close mist that had come from the mountains hovered over the court and crept into every crevice, chilling and dank.

There was much preliminary business to go through, and the people who thronged the court watched it with ill-concealed impatience. True bills were found for this offence and that: a.s.saults, batteries, larcenies.

Amid a general hush the crier called for Ralph Ray.

Ralph stepped up quietly, and laid one hand on the rail in front of him. The hand was chained. He looked round. There was not a touch either of pride or modesty in his steady gaze. He met without emotion the sea of faces upturned to his own face. Near the door at the end of the court stood the man who had been known in Lancaster as Ralph's shadow. Their eyes met, but there was no expression of surprise in either face. Close at hand was the burlier ruffian who had insulted the girl that sang in the streets. In the body of the court there was another familiar face. It was w.i.l.l.y Ray's, and on meeting his brother's eyes for an instant Ralph turned his own quickly away.

Beneath the bar, with downcast eyes, sat Simeon Stagg.

The clerk of the court was reading a commission authorizing the court to hear and determine treasons, and while this formality was proceeding Ralph was taking note of his judges. One of them was a stout, rubicund person advanced in years. Ralph at once recognized him as a lawyer who had submitted to the Parliament six years before. The other judge was a man of austere countenance, and quite unknown to Ralph. It was the former of the two judges who had the princ.i.p.al management of the case. The latter sat with a paper before his face.

The doc.u.ment sometimes concealed his eyes and sometimes dropped below his mouth.

"Gentlemen," said the judge, beginning his charge, "you are the grand inquest for the body of this county, and you have now before you a prisoner charged with treason. Treason, gentlemen, has two aspects: there is treason of the wicked imagination, and there is treason apparent: the former poisons the heart, the latter breaks forth in action."

The judge drew his robes about him, and was about to continue, when the paper suddenly dropped from the face of the other occupant of the bench.

"Your pardon, brother Millet," he interrupted, and pointed towards Ralph's arms. "When a prisoner comes to the bar his irons ought to be taken off. Have you anything to object against these irons being struck away?"

"Nothing, brother Hide," replied the judge rather testily. "Keeper, knock off the prisoner's irons."

The official appealed to looked abashed, and replied that the necessary instruments were not at hand.

"They are of no account, my lord," said Ralph.

"They must be removed."

When the delay attending this process was over and the handcuffs fell to the ground, the paper rose once more in front of the face of Justice Hide, and Justice Millet continued his charge. He defined the nature and crime of treason with elaboration and circ.u.mlocution. He quoted the ancient statute wherein the people, speaking of themselves, say that they recognize no superior under G.o.d but only the King's grace. "I do no speak my own words," he said, "but the words of the law, and I urge this the more lest any persons should draw dangerous inferences to shadow their traitorous acts. Gentlemen, the King is the vicegerent of G.o.d, and has no superior. If any man shall shroud himself under any pretended authority, you must know that this is not an excuse, but the height of aggravation."

Once more the judge paused, drew his robes about him, and turned sharply to the jury to observe the effect of his words; then to his brother on the bench, for the light of his countenance. The paper was covering the eyes of Justice Hide.

"But now, gentlemen, to come from the general to the particular. It is treason to levy war against the King's person, and to levy war against the King's authority is treason too. It follows, therefore, that all acts which were done to the keeping of the King out of the exercise of his kingly office were treason. If persons a.s.sembled themselves in a warlike manner to do any of these acts, that was treason. Remember but this, and I have done."

A murmur of a.s.sent and approbation pa.s.sed over the court when the judge ceased to speak. Perhaps a close observer might have marked an expression of dissatisfaction on the face of the other judge as often as the doc.u.ment held in front of it permitted the eyes and mouth to be seen. He shifted restlessly from side to side while the charge was being delivered, and at the close of it he called somewhat impatiently for the indictment.

The clerk was proceeding to give the names of the witnesses, when Ralph asked to be permitted to see the indictment. With a smile, the clerk handed him a copy in Latin. Ralph glanced at it, threw it back to the table, and asked for a translation.

"Let the indictment be read aloud and in English," said Justice Hide.

It was then read, and purported that, together with others, Ralph Ray, not having the fear of G.o.d before his eyes, and being instigated by the devil, had traitorously and feloniously, contrary to his due allegiance and bounden duty, conspired against the King's authority on sundry occasions and in divers places.