The Witchfinder

by S. Fowler Wright

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THE WITCHFINDER

CONTENTS

Chapter		Words.
1	THE WITCHFINDER	14,211
2	STATUS	4,617
3	WHO ELSE BUT SHE?	7,376
4	BURGLAR'S AID	3,993
5	CARROTS	7,186
6	THE TEMPERATURE OF GEHENNA SUE	3,672
7	THE CONGO CAT	4,483
8	ORIGINAL SIN	3,151
9	A QUESTION OF E.P D.	10,263
10	THE TERROR OF WILLIAM STICKERS	1,522

THE WITCHFINDER

        SIR JOHN reined his horse, and looked back. He saw four who rode faster than he could still hope that he would be able to do.

        He had fled since morn, and the April twilight was round him now.

        His lance was gone, having been broken upon the shield of one who had died at noon. Could he meet four with a sword which had had some practice in foreign wars? Loving life, as youth will, it was a chance that he would be most willing to miss.

        Yet he slackened the poor speed of a wearied horse, even to less than the pace it would have chosen to take. The pursuers were plain to see on the high skyline behind: before was a straggling wood, in which he might have found cover till darkness fell. But he looked back as though reluctant to enter until assured that he had been seen by those who had been so persistent upon his track.

        When he rode into the trees, on a bridle-path which was broad and clear, he held to the middle, though mud was deep, for there had been a week of rain, and he looked down with a smile of satisfaction at the depth of the hoofmarks that witnessed the way he came.

        Having ridden some distance into the woods, and the sound of pursuit now being as close as he dared risk, he slid from the saddle, stood stiffly for one listening moment, and struck the horse a hard blow with his sheathed sword.

        The startled animal dashed forward. Lightened of his weight, and with the instinct to find a shelter as darkness fell, it might go far on that lonely way before it would be caught up by the burdened animals that were spurred behind. So he must hope.

        He looked on the ground. He had chosen well. It was a spot which would show no mark of his leather, steel-faced shoes: certainly none to any glance it was likely to get in the closing dusk. He withdrew quickly into thickets which were, as yet, bare of the green of spring.

        He crouched in a shade of ivy-tangle where he could see those who came, with little fear that he would be noticed by them.

        They rode single-file on the narrow path, and keeping some space apart, for their long lances must be carried low under the boughs. The first was a man-at-arms, bigly made, mounted on a bony white Normandy charger. He wore a ragged tabard broidered with Sir Hugh Offley's crest. Man and horse looked a formidable combination, designed less for ornament than for use. It seemed natural that he should be riding ahead. One who was paid to take the brunt when hard blows were changed, and who endured them without overmuch damage to his own limbs, though he might lack the noble name to which honour is most readily paid.

        Sir Hugh himself came next. Well-mounted on a charger of less bone, and probably better blood. He showed debonair, with a gleam of gold on his crested helm in the evening light, and a gay surcoat over his mail. Two spearmen came behind, active, well-grown varlets both, but soberly armed, with more of leather than steel.

Sir John pondered them with a tired smile, considering how they would have faced the swing of his heavy two-handed sword. He concluded: "I am best here."

But it was not a place in which he wished to remain. He did not know how soon those four might catch up with a grazing steed. When that should occur, be it soon or late, he could not be too far away for his own peace. He began to force his way through the undergrowth, in which there were no wider tracks than the deer required.

        He went on, though the night fell, keeping a northerly course by the aid of a rising moon on his right hand, which could be seen at times through the trees, Doing this, he must come at last to the Ridminster road, if to no place before that where he could look round under an open sky. But he did not know how far it might be. Perhaps no more than three miles: or no less than ten. He went on.

        He did not regret the choice he had made. It had been better to let the horse go than to have been ridden down, or to have concealed himself where he might have been betrayed by a whinny, such as a mare may give at the sound of other horses' approach. But he did not like the condition to which he had been reduced. A knight armed as he had been could have little ease apart from a horse's back. And he was hungry and tired.

        After a time, he loosed the heavy two-handed sword which had hung behind him, its cross-hilt rising over his left shoulder, and hid it-under a trail of ivy, where it was a poor chance that he would find it again. Later, cuishes and greaves must go a like way. He went on the better for that, but the forest went on farther yet.

        When he came to a ruined oak, hollow with age, he was glad to halt. There was room to lie, and whether it were dry or wet there was little light to disclose. An owl, drifting silently past not five feet from the ground, suggested that he had come to a place which was not usually trodden by human feet during midnight hours.

        He unlaced his helmet: loosened from his side a mace of ten pounds weight, which was the only weapon, except his dagger, he had retained, and lay down in such comfort as he could find, which was not much. His body-armour of Milanese mail he retained for warmth, it being heavily padded, and so of less discomfort than might be thought.

        Lying thus, he slept ill, waiting the dawn.

II

        Sir John, lying awake while the moon reigned, fell to sleep when he had thought to be up again. When he waked, the sun was some way up the sky, though it was not visible to him in that thick-set place. He had become stiff enough to make movement hard. Apart from that, he was most aware of hunger and a great thirst. All these troubles might be ended if he should move, but surely none while he lay still.

        Besides that, there was safety to be found in Ridminster, of a sort. Safety at least from being beset by Sir Hugh Offley at unequal odds, though there might be troubles of other kinds. If he should go forward with the shadows falling toward his left, he must come to that road before noon, however slow his progress might be. He went on through a forest that was dank with the morning dew, and dense in places, even in this leafless month, with holly, ivy, and yew, and less frequent pines.

        Yet the green buds swelled, the birds sang. The morning scene would have been cheerful enough to a man less burdened and better fed, though the ground sank, and became squelchy to tread, choose as he would, unless he would turn entirely aside.

        "Well," he thought, "if my shoes soak, there should, be water to drink."

        So it proved to be. He came to a place where there was water under the trees. It might be described as a shallow stream, though it was uncertain which way it moved. It seemed content to stay where it was. Sir John looked at it with distaste. It was the wisdom of his day that if you drank at a stream (as you often must) you should choose one which moved murmurously over the stones. But there were no stones here. The water lay, clear but motionless, over a bottom brown with the decayed leaves that had fallen six months before.

        But his thirst was such that he knelt, the water squelching from the dark leaf-mould beneath his knees. But he drank little. The pool had a foul taste, even for one as thirsty as he. He rose, with a thought that it was not his good day. He had more reason for thinking that before twilight fell.

        He might be getting nearer to Ridminster. It was more certain that he was in denser, gloomier woods. He must have gone on for an hour now, seeing no habitation of man, nor even a trodden path.

        He startled deer, which leapt over thickets, or ran under the boughs. Jays screeched overhead. Once a badger slipped into the shade. He saw signs of the rooting of many swine. There were places where rabbits ran . . . At length he came to a twisting path. It was a path which had been of some trodden breadth, but could now be little used, if at all. There were crossing briars to be pushed aside. Deep puddles through which to splash.

        Yet it held a better hope than that of continuing to push through the shadowy thickets, delayed by low-spreading boughs, and vexed by entangling briars. He followed it till he came to that which had been an abode of man at one time, though now it was no more than half a roof, some stout oak props, and a rubble of fallen brick. There had been a fruit-garden also, apples and plums, where the untended trees might still bear in season, though the nettles were shoulder-high round their mossy boles. But there could be no hope of the food he was needing now. In April, there is little for human nourishment to be found in English orchard or wood.

        Approaching this ruined cottage, with hope which was soon to fade, he came near to slip on a sodden plank that the nettles hid. He drew his foot back from a cracking of rotten wood. He supposed a disused well which had been at the path-side in the old days when the cottage walls had been stout, and the chimney smoked.

        As it was, his inspection was soon done. He would have gone on - for the path continued beyond the cottage, and might have led to a more habited place - when he heard women's voices. There must be two approaching, if not more, along the path by which he had come.

        There should be no menace from them and there might be help. At the least, they could point the way of escape from this lonely wood. It was likely that they could guide him to nearer food. He had a full purse, and among those who make their homes in the green woods, even a silver groat will go far.

        He was cautious to stand where he could see rather than be seen, but this caution was mainly lest he should scare those who might run faster than he would care to pursue . . . He saw that two came.

        He saw the face of one only. She was the taller of the two, and she wore no more than a kerchief on a brown-gold head. Her companion was shorter. Her face was hidden by a poke-bonnet. Her walk showed no lack of vigour, but had nothing of the lithe freedom of youth, which was evident in her companion's easy stride.

        Under the kerchief, Sir John saw a face of delicate colour, and a grave beauty at which his breath paused.

        Now they were close to where he had come near to fall at the ruined well. He saw the girl turn to her companion, as one who gave guidance on a path she knew. He could see her face well enough, through the higher scanter twigs of the struggling neglected hedge, the leaves of which did no more as yet than break to a mist of green. Her voice was clear: "Not that way. The mire is too deep. It is better here." They must have turned to the side of the path, and be treading the nettles down . . . There was a sound of rotting timber that snapped. A scream, that a splash drowned. Then it came again.

        Sir John started forward. Then he stopped, seeing an amazing, inexplicable and dreadful thing. The head of the shorter woman had disappeared. That she had fallen into the well was an easy guess. But her companion raised no alarm. She stood looking down on the one she had guided to death, and the grave beauty of her face was unchanged, beyond that the mouth was set in a firm line, and the eyes had no pity at what they saw.

        Sir John had started forward, and then paused in sheer bewilderment as to what could have occurred. Seeing the girl stand as she did, he supposed, for a short moment, that the accident could not be serious in its results. The next, he knew that it was murder, cold-blooded and deliberate, at which he gazed.

        The girl bent slightly forward, making sure, it might be supposed, that there could be no escape for her victim. She spoke again: "You may scream as you will. There is none to hear." Her head lifted. She regained the centre of the path, and went on, with the same buoyant stride as before. She had not seen Sir John, nor had she heard his movement, the air being loud with the woman's screams.

        As she went on, he hurried to the well-side. It was a circular pit about eight feet across, the brick wall of which might once have been slightly higher than the surrounding earth, but wayside rubbish and docks and nettles, as the years had passed, had made little of that. It had been covered with planks, stout enough when they had been placed there, but now too rotten to have borne the weight of a five years' child.

        Now, as he trod the dead stems of last year's nettles aside, he looked down at a black gap, and the white blur of a woman's face. It might have been comely enough at another time. It was hard to judge. It was distorted by terror now.

        The water in the disused well had risen to within five feet of the top. The woman, whether able to swim or not, had got some slight support from the slimy wall, to which she held with nails clutching between the bricks. She must have had some help from the air that her clothes held. Obviously, she was reluctant to drown. Her screams rose.

        Yet, without help, she was in a hopeless case, whether she could swim or not. She might swim round, if she could, or her skirts would permit, as a rat will in the bucket where it is put to drown. Or she might cling for a time, if she could not swim, to the wall, till her strength should fail, which could not be long deferred. But to get out would be an impossible feat.

        Sir John said: "Keep your hold. I will have you up." He thought it well for her that the water had come so high. He took off his belt.

        Lying flat at the well-side, he lowered the belt. She grasped it with one lifted hand, and then loosed the wall with the other, meaning to get the belt in a double grip. But, instead of that, losing the wall's support, her grasp of the belt failed. She fell back.

        Sir John saw that her case had become worse than before. Now she was holding on to a fragment of rotten wood which had fallen with her into the water, and which was inadequate to support her weight, so that it ducked under the surface, and her head was only precariously above it. Sir John recognised an idea that might be improved. He threw in a more solid and larger plank. The woman, showing no capacity for swimming, but some pertinacity in preserving her imperilled life, quickly transferred herself to this support and, with her arms over it, showed head and shoulders clear. He saw her face white and drawn, the nose sharp, the soaked hair in straggling grey wisps. The poke-bonnet, which had left her head as she fell, floated near. Sir John thought her an unattractive sight, curiously contrasting with the Madonna-like purity and freshness of the face of the one who had tricked and left her so callously to that dreadful fate. But something may be allowed for the unfavourable circumstances under which she was now observed.

        He had given her respite from death, but was no nearer getting her out, for which he could think of no better plan than to throw in the limbs of trees, until she could clamber up, or, at least, until she could get a good enough grip of his belt to be hauled thereby. He looked round for fallen boughs of a suitable size, which he could not see. He regretted his sword, which would soon have lopped timber enough from a nearby yew. It would be slower work with a dagger, however sharp.

        Yet he would have attempted that, having no thought of leaving her to a likely death, had he not heard the sound of horses approaching, and made a good guess at who the riders would be.

        "It will be better for her," he considered with sound logic, "that they should be next employed in hauling her out than that they should be fighting with me."

        They might, of course, have put their feud aside, and joined forces with him to get her out; but he knew Sir Hugh, and he thought not. He withdrew quickly behind the yew.

        The woman heard the trampling of hooves. She was not disposed to risk more than she must. She raised her voice again, as he had expected she would.

        He heard Sir Hugh's voice, even as the scream rose: "It is here that his steps turn. We shall have him now. Giles, you will search the shed."

        Sir John thought it was time to withdraw, leaving the wide yew tree between himself and those whom he sought to miss.

        Sir Hugh looked down at the woman, without troubling to enquire how she had fallen in, or much concern as to how or whether she should get out. He was one who kept his own affairs to the front.

        "Have you seen," he asked, "a mailed knight going on foot by this way?"

        Perhaps she should not be blamed overmuch, being where she was, that she answered, even with something more than the truth, promising that she would be their guide if they would raise her to the dry ground. As a fact, she did not know whether they asked with ill will or good.

        After that, she was soon out. She came up clinging, legs and arms, to a lance's shaft.

III

        Sir John, flying through the woods again with no object in where he went beyond placing himself as far as might be from those who would have his blood, became aware that he was an exhausted man. Should they find him now, he would be no more than easy prey. He could do no better than a stumbling walk, and it was the force of obstinate will rather than any hope that he could use it to good result that caused him still to carry the heavy mace which was known to be his favourite weapon, whether for horse fighting or foot.

        He had a piece of good luck as he fled, of which he was not aware, being favoured by the lie of the ground, so that he made a short cut where the road wound in a great loop, and was able to cross it again at a point which his pursuers had not reached.

        He had another, of more dubious kind, when he came to a clearing among the trees, and saw a fenced garden, neatly kept, and a thatched cottage with more aspect of comfort than he would have expected to find in that lonely place. But, be his enemies however close on his track, he had no hesitation in what he did. Food he must have, and any rest he could get, be it short or long. Reaching the porch, he did not delay to knock. He put his hand to the latch of a yielding door, and went in.

        He entered a low-ceiled room, comfortably furnished. On the open hearth, a bright log-fire burned. By it an old woman sat, who turned her head at the sound of the opening door.

        "I thought you would have been back - " she began, and then stopped at the sound of a step that she did not know. Sir John made a guess that her eyesight failed. Conscious of his own appearance, he saw no disadvantage in that. He spoke with the candour natural to one who had walked a fearless way through a world which had seldom pressed him so hard that he had been greatly tempted to lie.

        "I must make my excuse that I entered thus. I am Sir John of the Bitter Marsh, of whom you will have heard, though I have been away for a time in the foreign wars.

        "Now Sir Hugh Offley rides me down, and would have my death. I crave shelter and food, for which I will pay well."

        The old woman's head was still turned toward him, apart from which there was no evidence that she heard, or understood.

        "Margot," she said vaguely, "should be here now. She is gone too long."

        He thought it likely that he had learnt the name of the poor woman whose life he had almost certainly saved, though her rescue had been incomplete when he had felt it wise to withdraw. Well, if so, she might soon be here, though with a draggled tail, and should be willing to do something for one who had done much for her! But his needs were too urgent to wait.

        He was about to repeat the request for food, when a clear young voice behind him said: "If Sir Hugh Offley be on your track, it will be prudent to bar the door."

        He turned round to face, not the woman he had striven to save, but the girl who had lured her with lying words to step on those rotten boards, with (as he thought) the push of a strong young arm to make surer of what she did.

        The doorstep on which she stood was three inches higher than the floor of the room (it being of polished oak, with no rushes strewn) so that, she being tall as she was, their eyes met in a level gaze.

        He saw those on which firelight shone, making them an even darker, more vivid blue than the sun would show. They looked cool, friendly, rather amused.

        He became puzzled, confused as he seldom was, and aware of the unheroic aspect he showed to her.

        She saw a knight of whom she had heard tales, but whom she had not encountered before, wearing such a helm as covered his face by no more than a straight bar which came downward to guard the nose. She saw a face below that which was pale and strained, firm lips which would be quick to smile at a fitter time, and a cleft chin.

        She saw body-armour of mail, and a belt, gay but soiled, from which hung a heavy mace, inadequately balanced by a long poniard on the other side. On his legs were no better protection than long pink hose, stained and torn, above steel shoes which were heavy with drying mud.

        She could not guess that he had seen her before, and the cold doubt in his eyes might seem to her no more than was natural to the expression of an exhausted and hunted man.

        The thought that came uppermost in the bewilderment of his mind was that, had he known her less than he did, he would have thought her God's angel to meet his need.

        But, without waiting for his reply, she had closed the door, which he had left open as he entered. A bar fell into place. A bolt shot upward into the oakbeam of the ceiling. Another downward into the stone of the step. Certainly, no one would enter by that door without means of battering which Sir Hugh was unlikely to have at call

        She said in her friendly casual manner: "You have lost your horse - and your sword. It would seem they have pressed you hard . . . Are they far now?"

        "I suppose they are very near."

        "Well you will be the better for food: "She led the way through a well-ordered kitchen to a larder where a large shallow bowl of milk stood, waiting its time to be skimmed.

        She passed him a tin can. "You should drink well." She added: "You will be safe here for a time . . . We have no love for Sir Hugh."

        "I suppose" he said, "there are few who have." He ignored the can. He raised the bowl to his lips.

        When he put it down it was nearly dry. She looked at it with raised brows over laughing eyes. "It would seem," she said, "that we must avoid a siege."

        "You must forgive," he replied gravely. "I knew not how much I drank."

        "Oh you are welcome to that! You must allow me a poor jest, for our occasions are few."

        There was a tone of bitterness in her voice as she said this, and a look crossed her face such as he had seen when she looked down at a well where a woman struggled against her death.

        It reminded him that he must be wary with one whom, had he known less, he would have trusted with half he had. More than that, whom he might have placed on his heart's throne, where none had been since Jehane had proved of too light a mind for the worship she might-have won.

        Margot, not suspecting her guest of such thoughts as these, either bad or good, led to a narrow chamber on the further side of the kitchen. It had a pallet-bed, but little furnishing else, being neat but bare.

        "You should lie here," she said, "while you can. I will call you at any need . . . the back door is shut, but it will be no worse for a second bolt."

        With this word she left him. He looked at a door which had no fastening more than a wooden latch which a thong pulled from without. It would be hard for her to confine him there, of which he had had a doubt. For he did not trust her at all. Would she set out to find Sir Hugh when she thought him fallen to sleep?

        He considered the door again with an opposite mind. If she could not bolt him in, it was equally sure that he could not bolt anyone out. He might be surprised while he slept, and wake with a sword-point seeking beneath his mail. To avoid that, he hung his helm on the wooden latch in such a way that, should the thong be pulled, it must fall clattering to the floor.

        He lay down in more comfort than he had had during the night, though without venturing to draw off his mail, and, aiming to avoid sleep, he slept instantly, to be wakened in ten minutes' time by the noise of the helmet upon the floor.

        Margot entered, undeterred by the clatter which she had caused. "I can see," she said, with the smile which disclaimed malice behind her wit, "that God made you a cautious man."

IV.

        "They are riding this way," she said, "which I thought you would wish to know. There are four in all, or there may be some whom I have not seen."

        "No. That is the tale they make, unless they have been joined by others during the night. How-long have I slept?"

        "Can I say? You have been fifteen minutes here, or a few less."

        "That's how I feel."

        "Well, you should stay here. I suppose I may turn them off. But you will hear that."

        While they spoke they had moved into the kitchen. The chamber where he had had so brief a slumber was plainly not the place for him to stay, it having a slit of window which gave a complete view of all within, though it would have been too narrow to make entrance possible. But where he now stood in the kitchen he could not be observed from any outside angle of observation, and as she left the intervening door open while she now went to deal with a loud knocking at the front of the cottage, he was in a position to overhear what would occur there.

        He heard the click of the latch as the girl opened a casement window, to parley with those who hammered on the door. As she did so, he had a thought which he did not like. They were four who had just rescued, as he rightly supposed, a woman who had been intended to drown. It was likely that they would have brought her along. It was less so that she would keep a still tongue as to who bad misled her to fall into the well, and callously left her to drown. It was almost certain that, having been walking with her in familiar conversation, she would know her name and abode. She might have led them there. It was even possible that they had come to do justice for that crime, rather than searching for him.

        He saw a risk that he might be involved in a quarrel which was not his, and of a particularly unsavoury kind. It might be open to the misrepresentation, by unscrupulous tongues, that he had a partnership in the deed, or had been cut down when resisting the legal arrest of one who was a murderess in intention, if not in fact.

        It was a prospect he did not like, and his glance went to the little passage which led to the back door. If he should break out there while some, perhaps all, of the four were at the front - . He saw a chance. He felt a new vigour since he had been refreshed by that mighty drink. . . .

        Yet, hesitating, he did not move. He would first hear what was said.

        He heard a voice which was strange to him, but which he guessed soundly to come from the mouth of the man-at-arms who had ridden that heavy-boned white Normandy stallion.

        "Mistress, you have one, John Bitmarsh, harbouring here. We must have him forth."

        "There is no one here. No one but Grandma and I. You have knocked at the wrong door."

        "We have another tale. You must open up."

        "We do not open to armed men. We are two women alone. I tell you, you waste your time. There is no one here."

        "That we must see. If you do not open, we shall come in by our own way."

        "How will you do that? This is a royal lodge, as you know. If you force door, you will hang, as I need not say."

        "An open window is not a door. If we come in here, we force naught. You would do better to loose the bolt, if you have no one whom you would hide."

        The girl laughed: "You are student of law! Do you say you will come in here? You must shrink first from what you now are!"

        There was a trampling of hooves on stone, and another voice, which Sir John did not hear for the first time.

        "Giles, do not parley thus. Tell the woman to open the door, in the King's name."

        "Sir Hugh Offley," Margot replied, "do you say that? Have you a royal warrant to show?"

        "How could I have that, the King being in France at this hour, as you are wholly aware? I seek one who is traitor to him, and a forfeit life, and that should be royal warrant enough to open door which is yours by the King's grant."

        "I know nothing of whom you seek. But I tell you there is no one here. You waste words at the wrong door."

        "That could be soon shown."

        "Which it will not be."

        "Which it will at a near hour. There is one who comes on a worse errand than mine, and in the Church's name, which the King himself will not defy."

        There was a moment's silence, and then the girl spoke again in a voice which sounded less steady to him who listened behind the wall.

        "Tell your man to stand back, Sir Hugh. I have something to say for your ear alone . . . I know well what you mean. You will call my Grandam witch. You would have her burn. But I do not fear you at all. It is a false tale, as there will be good witness to show. She is simple and deaf. She does not heed nor hear what we say now. Is that witches' craft?"

        "That is for the Church to say. It is not for us. If you have no word for me but this - ."

        "But I have. Is your own peril naught, when you stir for witches in every wood? Have you no fear of the mark on your own brow? It is Satan's sign."

        "Now, by the Five Wounds! It is a scar I took in the Flemish war. That is known to all."

        "That is known for your own tale. It goes no further than that. I should say it is Satan's sign, marking a soul bought at a price he has. It is very like, as the Church would see."

        "You are witch's whelp. You should have a care, or two may burn in one fire."

        "Men will burn also at times, though it is said that they take longer, and make a less rich smoke, as they may lack fat."

        "Mistress, you do not fright me at all. Nor could I stop this if I would. There is warrant out. But I may give you aid, if you come to me at the right hour."

        "I should be hard pressed before that."

        "It is yours to choose . . . I ask you now, for the last time, if you harbour John Bitmarsh here. I would have you think that it will do no good to your grandam, nor yet to you, that a traitor be in your doors."

        "And I tell you that it is naught to me. There is none here."

        Sir John heard the casement close, and the latch click. He heard her approaching steps. She had shown a staunchness to him beyond anything that hospitality could require, and at a time when she had urgent troubles which, as it had been put to her, might be worse by making his cause hers. What should he say now?

V.

        Sir John could not doubt that there were those whom evil spirits controlled, he being a Christian man. Witchcraft can be proved out of Holy Writ, and that it has left the world in our time is easy to say, but beyond proof. It is a matter for the Church to decide, on which laymen may well be dumb. Even a Paynim might agree there. So he thought.

        He knew also that accusation of witchcraft is a thing for all men, and especially for all women to dread. It is so much easier to assert than disprove. He knew that there were informers who made a living by denouncing witches, for which they were paid by public authorities who were aware of the importance of weeding these agents of Satan out of a congregation of simple men. He knew that these informers were not generally loved: that they were the subjects of ribald or dreadful tales which might (or might not) be true.

        Was Margot one of these? He had heard her threaten to denounce Sir Hugh on an evidence he did not believe; and though he was his bitter foe he did not desire that he should go to the stake on a false charge of that shameful kind. Before that he had seen her contrive another woman's death in a cool way. For one morning's work it might seem enough, even for one in whom Satan reigned, and by whom she had been given a fair face and a voice to win trust, as it is known that he will do to those whose souls have been sold to him.

        But Sir John saw that, be she murderess, or witchfinder, or witch, or aught else of an evil name, she had done service to him, with what object (except good) it was hard to see. But perhaps he would soon know. Would she seek to seduce him now in a carnal way and perhaps betray him in a moment of sin to the Evil Power? Retrato Sathanas. He crossed himself to regain strength to resist her power.

        She came in, looking neither seductress or murderess, but a much frightened girl having let slip the front of courage with which she had faced Sir Hugh.

        "You heard it alll?" she asked.

        "I heard that you were my good friend," he answered, almost against his will. St. Stephen aid him! How could he resist such eyes as were on him now?

        "It is a door," she said, "from which none who come in need may be met with a shut hand. There is good reason for that, as perhaps you know."

        "I suppose not."

        "Then it is soon told. My father - it was in the days of the late King when he was new to the throne - took in a stranger at night though he called himself by a name which could not be his, as my father knew.

        "It was the King's self who had become lost in the chase, and had thought concealment the wiser choice, having friends in these parts whom he could better trust if he were less in their power.

        "The King gave him the right to dwell here, he and his heirs, to a most far day. Not that it is ours. It remains the King's, as was all the forest at that time, so that we have a right to dwell in a place that we may neither sell nor pawn.

        "Sir Hugh hath all the forest in grant from the present King, except this plot, at which he is sore, and at a right that we also have to kill game in the woods.

        "That is why he will have my grandam called for a witch, thinking, as I suppose, that he will bargain thereafter with me, that if I go from here he will do her some favour, greater or less, which may be no more than an easy death."

        Sir John did not feel disposed to question this tale, with those eyes upon him (which he told himself were too fair to light the soul of a sinless maid) and to credit evil of Sir Hugh was not hard, but he saw that there was one thing which it was needful to say: "Then you have trouble enough, without me. You must let me go."

        "We have refused help to none since that night, when my father friended one whom he did not know. If we do that, I suppose we shall have come to our evil day."

        Sir John looked at something he had noticed before. He said: "You have a crucifix on the walls."

        She looked blank at that. "Is it not well? Where would you have it be?"

        "If you will swear to me upon that, that your gran-dam is no witch, neither are you - ."

        Astonishment and then anger shone in her eyes. "Why should I do that? Do you hold me in such a doubt? I have been your friend."

        "Yet I might help you more than you think, if I were of a quiet mind as to what you are."

"As to which you will heed Sir Hugh's words? And he being your mortal foe, and the man that you know he is? And after what I have done? I would take no help on such terms, were yours of greater avail, or our peril more than I think it to be. If you like us not, there is the choice of a near door."

        Sir John heard this in some doubt. He was half minded to take the choice she proposed. Her anger seemed real enough, but he observed that she had refused to swear, which he knew (on the Cross of God) that no witch would be able to do. But he was a just man, and he saw that he had been less than fair.

        Had he not seen her cast a woman to death, he would I have taken less heed of Sir Hugh's words. It was true also that, even should she swear by the very feet of Christ, it would still leave him troubled by a doubt of another kind.

        Further, it was true that she had been his friend, and he must seem to her to offer payment in a base coin. On every count, he saw it to be a case for straighter words than there had yet been.

        "You call me ingrate," he said, "and so it sounds. But you shall have the plain words I owe. I saw that in the woods this morn which no man would forget."

        As he said this, their eyes met, and her colour changed. He knew that she owned her guilt in that glance as surely as though she had said aloud what they both knew. And that, it seemed at the next moment, was what her intention was.

        "If you saw that," she said boldly, "I will tell all, which you must weigh in what scales you will." But as she said it, there was a noise of horses about the door, louder and more numerous than had been those they had first heard.

        At the sound, the blood left her face. "He said no more than the evil truth," she exclaimed bitterly. "They will have her life if they can. But they may find that his witness lags." She re-entered to the front room, where her grandmother still sat in her fireside chair, seeming oblivious of that which went on around her, in which she was so nearly concerned.

        Sir John followed, and, seeing this, Margot turned upon him: "You had best be gone, if you yet can. Here will be men of the law."

        "Do you say that for my own good, or would you be blither to see me go?"

        "I say that for yourself. Here will be sheriff and priest, with the law's power, and Sir Hugh to prompt. Did he not say there is a taint of treason upon your head?"

        "Yet, by your leave, I will stay."

        "Then so you must, for I will not be slow with the bolts again. That were folly now."

        She drew the bolts, and the bar. The door opened to the little group of dismounted men who were round the porch.

        The Sheriff of Ridminster entered, his cap civilly in his hand. He was a man of middle-age, somewhat rotund, and with good living written upon his face. He might have been a good man of his hands in his younger days, but now he wore no more than a formal sword, and the strong cloak of the law.

        "Mistress," he said, addressing Margot, but looking at the fireside figure which had turned its head to regard this noisy influx of strangers about her door, with a vague curiosity rather than apprehension in the dim eyes, "your grandam must come with me. I have warrant here. Will you have it read?"

        "I will take your word," she said. "I know who hath done this. If there be a just God, it is he who should have occasion for fear."

        "It is that the law must decide," the sheriff answered, with the tone of a man who might have more agreement with her than it would be prudent to show.

        The Prior of Monceaux stood at his side, a lean, austere man, with the reputation of a most learned divine. "Daughter," he said, "there is a just God, and a just law. If your grandam be clean of soul, she hath naught to fear."

        He spoke with an earnest sincerity from which she might take such comfort as could consort with the knowledge that he had sent five women - four old and one young - to the flames in the last two years, and acquitted one. For he had been zealous to cleanse the land.

        "I may come with her?"

        "Why, no," the sheriff answered, "I have no warrant for that. You were best away. For this day, there will be nothing but formal charge."

        "She needs tendence, being simple with age."

        She will have care enough. For yourself, you can come at a later hour. The turnkey will have order to let you through, or her man of law."

        The words were such as might have sounded fair to the ear of a later age, but to her they were evidence of the severity of legal process in these cases where ecclesiastical and civil law combined against those who were supposed to be armed with the devil's wiles. A man accused of arson or theft might have had all the callers he would, if the turnkey were given coin to make him complaisant of the labour of drawing bolts. So that he were safely kept to the day of assize, he might entertain the town if he would; which seemed as natural to that day as do severer restrictions to a more disciplined age.

        While they spoke, two of the sheriff's men had approached the old woman, and were leading her to the door. Her steps appeared to be slow with age rather than delayed by any reluctance in what she did. It was hard to guess how much she understood, or what thoughts moved in her senile mind.

        The man put her into a small coach, to which was harnessed a single mule. They locked doors. "She should be dull to burn," one of them said, as he got back to his own saddle. He had known them to kick and bite when they were seized, or to scream till it had been pity to hear.

        They sat their horses, wondering why their masters delayed, the arrest being done.

VI.

        Sir Hugh Offley, standing at the sheriff's elbow, said: "Master Clement, there is more work for you here. There is John Bitmarsh who fled the seas after his part in the late rebellion. I know not how he hath been hardy to venture back. But I charge him that he hath slain a good man of mine, Matthew Pellett to name, yesternoon in the Frogmere wood."

        The Sheriff looked at Sir John, whom he did not know, and saw one in poor guise for a knight, but with much the look of a hunted man. He said: "John Bitmarsh, if you answer to that name, what have you to say to that?"

        "I say, by your leave, that I am Sir John of the Bitter Marsh, having been knighted a second time, it is ten days since, by the King's own hand, at a court he held at Rouen."

        "It is," Sir Hugh said, "an unlikely tale."

        "If it be so," the Sheriff replied, "I must hope that you have proof, or I must apprehend you if I be so required, and you having made admission of who you are."

        "You are a man of parts, I must suppose," Sir John replied, "holding the high office you do. You will read that which is fairly writ in the Latin tongue."

        "I will see that which you have to show."

        Sir John drew a parchment from beneath his mail. He handed it to the sheriff, who looked at it as one who reads, and then passed it on to the prior with the words: "There is matter here."

        He spoke with a-gravity which concealed from all but the churchman, who had proved him before, that he could read one word in six, or perhaps less. The Prior of Monceaux considered the scroll and its heavy seal with equal gravity, and more understanding eyes.

        He looked shrewdly at Sir John to ask: "His Majesty is in accord with the Duke his son?"

        "The King hath made peace with his sons, and the wars are done. He may be in London at this hour."

        It was great news, welcome or unwelcome to those who heard, but not such as any could meet with a frowning brow. It made it a small matter that they had arrested a reputed witch, or that a man named Matthew Pellett had felt Sir John's sword go through his neck at the last noon.

        The sheriff caught the tone of courtesy, almost of deference, in which the Prior had addressed Sir John of the Bitter Marsh. He might be less than expert in construing the Latin tongue, but he was one who could read much from the drift of a single straw. He said to Sir Hugh, with more sharpness in his voice than he would have been likely to use a moment before: "If you have charge to make, let it be by process of law. I do nothing here."

        He went out, followed by others, until Margot stood alone with Sir John.

        She looked at him with doubtful eyes. "It would seem," she said, "that you asked my aid at a slight need."

        "On the contrary," he replied, "I may owe you life. Sir Hugh would have had no scruple in what he did, nor to cover it with a false tale. He hath all my land, which he will be loth to yield."

        "Yet you do not trust me at all."

        "You are one," he replied steadily, "with the face of a madonna of dreams, whom I know to have tricked a woman to cruel death. Can I forget that?"

        "Your own hands being clean of blood since so long ago as the last noon?"

        "I slew one who assailed my life, as it was knightly to do."

        "I slew one who would have sold my grandam's life for eight silver coins, which has been her pay when she has brought five others to death before."

        "You thought her perjured in what she swore?"

        "I knew it well. She brought Joan Hiver to burn with a lying tale. Do you think a witch-finder can make her gains with a truthful tongue?"

        Sir John saw that this argument had force, though he saw also a question with two sides. Witches were evil-doers who must be brought to justice in accord with Divine law. To prove their guilt must be a perilous attempt, they being as vindictive as they were pestilent in themselves, and having Satan for strong ally. Yet witnesses there must be, as the law required, and such witnesses must be paid. That a witch's friends should try to bring the witch-finder to death might be natural, but was not to be condoned by one of orderly mind.

        Yet if the girl knew as a sure fact that her grandam was of innocent simple mind, and if she knew with equal certainty that an informer was on her track who had borne false witness before, which had been believed. - His mind paused abruptly from the coolness of judgement to the realisation of practical fact. The woman might not be dead. There was more reason to think she lived.

        "I suppose," he said, "you love your grandam well?"

        "I could say less than that. She was hard to me till her senses failed. But I would not see her falsely denounced for that which she does not do."

        He considered this, and, perhaps illogically, it seemed a stronger plea of justification than if she had claimed to have acted under the urge of overmastering affection. It was love of justice, colder and purer than the impulse of even amiable passion, which had hardened resolve and courage to the point of leading the witch-finder to tread on those rotten planks. And the idea of justice personally executed was less remote from those times than it became on a later day.

        But these thoughts brought him back to that to which his question had intended to lead. He asked: "And if this woman be dead, you suppose that the charge will fall?"

        "So I think. It was on her information that it was raised, and when she does not appear - . Besides, there will be those to speak in another way."

        "But if she were not drowned?"

        As she heard this question, a real fear came to her eyes. She thought, as she might have been quicker to do, that if Sir John had seen the woman's fall, he would have been unlikely to leave her unaided there. Yet if he himself had been hard in flight - She said: "Then we were both undone, Grandam and I."

        With her words, he saw that to be true, as also he had not realised it before. When he had cast a plank to a wretch who should have been left to drown, as her deeds deserved, he might not only have sealed an old woman's doom, but have given the girl who faced him now to the hangman's hands.

        But the truth, be it what it might, must be heed. It would be small avail to soothe her now with an easy word.

        "I know not," he said frankly, "whether she be living or dead." He told her all that he knew.

        They saw some hope, though not much, in the fact that Sir Hugh had not brought the woman along, nor made accusation concerning her. Apart from that, it was a pit of death into which she must look with unsteady eyes.

        Yet hope came back to her heart as she heard him speak with the firm tone of one who had not often found himself unequal to control event to his own will.

        "It is I," he said, "who have brought you to this peril, by that which was not my business to do, and it is I who must get you free. If there be no better course, we may flee while there is time."

        "We?" she echoed, with wonder and incredulity in her voice. "You would fly with me, losing all you have so lately regained?"

        "It were no more than that to which I am knightly vowed," he answered, unaware of insincerity in that declaration; yet he was conscious that such companionship might be a penance easy to bear. "But," he added "I said, if no better course should appear. We must think first that she hath no proof against you, except it be from my mouth, which will not be heard."

        "Yet you must say that you heard her screams, and you will be asked more."

        "And I may reply. I may say that I saw her stumble in, being alone. What could she answer to that?"

        "You will so forswear, that it may win me relief?" she asked, with the same wonder in her voice he had heard before.

        "It is that," he answered, "to which I am trapped by my own zeal. Yet," he added, with an unusual casuistry, "it will be so that all may come to a good inn, though it by a crooked path."

        "You said these were the worse ways. Have you better to say?"

        "We know not yet that the woman live. And there is another thing to be first done, which has become urgent now . . . Have you a horse in this place, if not two?"

        "We have two that are good enough. You may wait me here. I shall do better alone."

        She went out at the rear door, not waiting for his reply.

VII.

        Margot went to the edge of the wood. She called twice, and a youth came. He was a hired servant, faithful in a timid way, but one who would be hard to find while trouble was round the door. She had judged that he would be quicker to appear should he see her alone than with a mailed knight at her side.

        It was no more than a few minutes later that two horses appeared, saddled for the road, of which it had been no more than truth to say they were good enough, and one was better than that.

        "Shall we reach them," Sir John asked, "before they are in the town?"

        "We may do that, if we ride hard. The ways are foul, and they must go at the mule's speed, which will not be much."

        For the first mile there were no more words, for the path was neither wide nor good, and they saw that they would do worse riding abreast. Margot led, knowing the way, and Sir John found that he must give all his heed to his horse's steps on a muddy and trampled path, which he must take at a good pace, or be left behind.

        But when they came to a forking of broader paths, she drew rein, letting him come to her side, so that he asked in a natural doubt: "Are you unsure of the way?"

        "I am unsure which we shall take. Is it of much weight that we should reach them before they come to the town?"

        "It is this much, that, if we do, I hope to bring your grandam back, so that she will not be jailed at all, and we shall have but one matter with which to deal. How will you thank me for that?"

        "I will thank you the best I can, having little to give which would be any value to you."

        "Then you will give me all that a maid may."

        She made no answer to that, though her colour rose. She understood well enough, or perhaps less than that, being unsure of the terms on which he would be likely to deal. Well, they must talk of that, if at all, at a later time!

        "There is one way," she said, "which will be sure, if we do not drown. But the stream is high."

        "It is for high stakes that we play."

        She made no answer to that, but swung her horse round to the straiter path. For a short time, it climbed steeply. It became so narrow that the thicket brushed them on both sides: the briars caught them above.

        Soon they came to the crest of a ridge too densely wooded to give an extended view. The path fell as sharply as it had risen. There were places where the horses went downward on sliding hooves. But it was a way they had been before, and they did not fear.

        So they came down to a stream that was smooth and wide, with level land on its further side, open and low.

        The water was very smooth. It was not even wind-ruffled, the air being still. Only the passing of leaf or twig revealed how swiftly it ran. Margot looked at it with frowning brows. "I had guessed it deep," she said, "but not this."

        "If we cross here, we are sure?"

        "The ford which they must take is three miles below, to which their road winds."

        The inference was clear. Ridminster lay before them now in clear sight, its three square minster towers rising from the low flat knoll of land, not two miles away, which had been surrounded by marshes in ancient days, giving protection from Dane and Norman in turn, and still being girdled by low meadows, which could be flooded with ease.

        "There is no way but this?"

        "Not now. We must go back, if at all, by the way we came."

        "Well," he said, "I will go alone."

        He rode a bright bay stallion, and she a mare of a darker brown, which was two hands shorter; and a higher saddle made the difference seem more than that, as he looked down upon her.

        "No," she answered stubbornly, "it is two or none. We shall get through. The horses know it well. You must only heed that they do not go down the stream. It is deeper there, and the bank is steeper to climb."

        It was not a point on which sight could aid, for on the farther side the water brimmed to within a few inches of the top, threatening to flood the low lands beyond.

        "If the horses know that," he said, "they will strive the more." He wound her rein to his bridle-hand, and rode in.

        The stallion took the water with a great plunge boldly enough, and the water broke on the saddle-bow at his second stride. The mare dragged for a moment upon the rein. Had she been alone, it is likely that she would have refused. But as it was, she had little choice.

        She was accustomed to follow where the bay led. She heard Margot's voice. She was of a good heart, and loved praise, as a mare will. She struggled on, though the whites of her eyes showed.

        There came a time when she must swim. The full force of the current struck her, though, while the stallion kept his feet, it could not carry her down. But she bumped his shoulder, making it harder for him. Strive as he did, he lost ground. In midstream, he was swimming too.

        They were carried down, whether they would or no. It was far down that they came to the farther bank, and here it was almost sheer, so that the mare had no footing at all. Margot had slipped from the saddle before that, swimming at the mare's side. Now she scrambled out, so that she could hold the rein from the bank above.

        Left to himself, the stallion came out with a great heave, and a mighty splash. A few yards lower down they found a place where the mare got a better hold.

        She came out, with hard dragging upon the rein, and much breaking away of the muddy bank.

        "Well," Sir John said, "it seems that we have done that. But you are more drenched than I."

        She laughed reply, though she must shiver in the chill air. "It is better to drench than drown. If I am drenched, I shall dry."

        They regained their saddles, and rode on. Her wet gown clung, showing contours which he was bold to admire.

        "You look well."

        He was conscious, as he spoke the words, that they might have been better chosen, and that they deserved the coldness of her reply: "Which is different from how I feel."

        But he was one by whom it was pleasant to be admired and even physical discomfort will be forgotten at the fateful crises of life. They struck the Ridminster road, built firm and high between rain-filled dykes. They turned, leaving the minster towers at their backs, riding to meet those who would expect them, if at all, from the opposite direction.

VIII.

        They rode half a mile on that backward way before they saw the approach of the sheriff's party coming at such a pace as the mule-pulled carriage could make.

        The prior rode ahead with the two priests that his state required. Their horses were plump, and used to a leisured pace, but they were fresh enough for that at which the party moved to be easy to them.

        In the midst, the sheriff and his retinue surrounded the little coach - and Sir Hugh Offley, with the three men who were his, came in the rear, their hard-ridden mounts doubtless glad to move with untightened reins.

        Sir John pulled up as they met, not drawing his horse across the way, as one who would make obstruction sure, but yet as plainly desiring speech rather than to pass on his proper side.

        "Sir Prior," he said, "by your leave, I would have a few further words bearing on this arrest, either with the sheriff or you."

        The Prior reined his own horse, which he could hardly avoid. "I would hear you, Sir John," he said courteously enough, though without warmth, "but could it not be at a better time? By your pardon, you have the look of one who should seek an inn."

        Sir John of the Bitter Marsh, who was aware that his half-armed and bedraggled aspect was more adapted to provoke mirth than respect, and who was not normally careless of his attire, felt the rebuke.

        "I am not one," he said, "to go foul, unless it be by constraint of most urgent affairs. But you will regard that, since I have come back to my own land by the good grace of our Lord the King, I have found that there are others by whom his favour is not approved.

        "For first I am so beset that my life has a hard escape, and then - "

        Sir Hugh, who, with the sheriff, had now come to the front of a halted group, interrupted sharply: "Had you shown the pardon you bear - "

        "Did you stay to talk, when you would have ridden me down, from two sides at once? Should I have met the lance of him who is now dead with a spread scroll? I had been myself dead at this hour, had I shown no greater wisdom than that!"

        "On this matter," the prior replied, as Sir Hugh was less quick to do, "there should be debate, Sir John, if at all, at a better time. If you will take counsel from me - "

        "But it is not all. I find that Sir Hugh's venom is not only for me. There are some I will call my friends who are pestilently accused by a false word, as I will say it to be."

        The Prior, who was an honourable and astute man, though having a set belief that the devil was busy in ways which it is easy to doubt, did not fail to perceive the implications of this, and he answered temperately: "Sir John, you have been home but a short day, and it may be that those whom you are hasty to call your friends should have a worse word. That will be weighed in a just scale, as you must not doubt. But as to Sir Hugh Offley, I must tell you that, though he has been active to cleanse the land both now and before, yet the witness in this matter is not from him, but from one, Judith Hoad to name, a woman of good repute and who is gifted by God to perceive the hoof that is hid by a woman's gown."

        "So I have heard," Sir John answered, "and well believe. But when you trust this woman's witness against those who were of good repute till her tongue wagged, how can it be sure that she is not herself of the kind that pure water will never drown?"

        It was a bold stroke, with more intention than the Prior of Monceaux could guess. He understood well enough that Sir John hinted that the informer was herself a pensioner of the Evil Power, for it was a fact well known in the eastern shires at that time that a witch could not be drowned. It was an illustration of the way in which the Devil's care for his own will be found vain, for if the woman, being so tested, refused to go quietly to the bottom, then she was a witch proved and should feel the fire; and if she drowned, it was pity enough, but there was an end, which could not be changed.

        The Prior understood that, but he did not know that the woman had been tested in a black well, nor that she had been fished out, which Sir John was seeking to learn.

        It was a well-aimed shaft, which might have gone home, but that Sir Hugh was armed with an ignorance that he could not guess.

        He had known Judith Hoad before, but rather by repute than sight, though there were silver coins that had passed from his pouch to hers by a steward's hand. He might not have recognised her in the draggled condition in which she was fished out, with arms and legs twisted round a lance shaft and looking less like a woman than a drowned fowl, even had he known her more than he did, and given her a more careful glance.

        Giles had said: "Her tale is that the fox will have gone to earth at the King's Lodge," and he had replied: "Well, she must learn to walk with a better care," and ridden on, leaving her to sweat or shiver, to live or die, without further thought for a small affair.

        The fact was that she had struggled home to lie abed with a fever by which, in three days' time, she was dead, having confided to none.

        But Sir John, having no guess of this, and not learning that from Sir Hugh which he did not know, must continue the course on which he had first resolved, which was to get the old woman cleared before the witchfinder could tell her tale. For he saw that, if he should do that, Judith Hoad would be discredited in advance of that which she would be likely to tell.

        But when he saw that Sir Hugh did not rise to a bait which had no meaning for him, he must go on in the same doubt as before.

        Sir Hugh saying nothing at all, the prior answered in some impatience: "There is no cause for such suspicion that I have heard, and if you have information to lay, it must be done in orderly form, and at another occasion than this."

        "I will let that pass for this time. You will allow that she who is now accused has the right to make appeal to ordeal of battle for her defence?"

        "It is the right of law, though it be little used in these days, nor of likely avail, for who would fight in the devil's cause?"

        "I have no lust to fight in the devil's cause, but if I take this, I suppose he will be on the other side, doing the most harm that he may."

        "That, Sir John, you may decide in a more temperate mood."

        "I would try it now, if Sir Hugh will dare so far as to risk his sword for that which his tongue hath said."

        "It is not a matter to be settled," Sir Hugh answered coldly, "either at this place or time. But at an hour fitly arranged I will meet you, Sir John, as you well know, on horse or foot, with lance or sword, and on what pretext you choose to make."

        "You are answered, Sir John," the Prior said, "and I will ask you to yield us way."

        But Sir John did not move. He answered Sir Hugh: "There is no time like the present hour. If I will meet you as I now am, being but half-armed?"

        Sir Hugh stared unbelief, but he considered that the challenge had been publicly made, and that it gave him a better hope of clearing his enemy from his path than he could hope for another day. "If," he said, "you be so puffed in your own conceit, I must accept the challenge that you are urgent to give, it being witnessed by all here that you have had no provocation from me and that you are betrayed by the devil whose cause you have made your own."

        "Sir John," the prior interposed, "bethink you of what you do. You are neither weaponed nor armed as a knight should be. I am your friend when I ask you to leave this to a better time."

        "Sir Prior, I thank you for a word which is kindly meant, but do you not teach that such ordeal must fall as God's justice wills?"

        "That is Holy Truth. And it is therefor that I would not have you besot yourself to fight half-armed in a witch's cause."

        "Which I am yet determined to do, saying that she is none such."

        "If you be so resolved," Sir Hugh said, "we will end it here. There is sward which is level enough, and, if it be somewhat soft, it is equal for both; and there are those present who will see that the rules of chivalry are not slacked."

        The prior became silent, thinking that he might be about to observe the high judgement of God, though he was not sure how it would fall, but the sheriff felt that there was now something for him to say.

        "By your leave," he interposed, "I would know how this matter stand. For this procedure is not by ordered process of law. If there be duel here, and Sir John gain,, does the warrant fall?"

        "If it be so, Master Clement," the prior answered, "that Sir John should prevail, you will make your own choice, but Holy Church will no longer require that the accused be held to answer to any charge."

        "That word," the sheriff replied, "is all I need.

        "For he knew that such prosecutions were only instituted by the Church's request, and that the custom was for suspects to be handed over for her inquisition as to their possession by demon powers, after which she would hand them back to the civil arm, to be released or punished according to the code of secular law. If the Prior of Monceaux had no accusation to make, Master Clement would be blamed by none that he let her go.

IX.

        There was a stretch of dyke-bound sward at the road-side which the sheep had cropped, and here the duel was quickly set by men to whom its rules were as familiar as May-day sports.

        The road gave them space enough to line up to view, without need for any to look over the head of a shorter man. There was not even a palisade edging the field, to which the dykes were sufficient bounds.

        They used all the lances they had, laying them flat on the ground to mark out rectangular spaces at either end of the field in which the combatants might prepare themselves with the aid of such seconds as they might choose, who must not afterwards give aid, even by a warning word, till the fight was done.

        Briefly, the prior administered the oaths that the occasion required.

        As to seconds, Sir John said he had need of none, having undertaken to fight as he then was, but as the sheriff was of a mind to have all done in an ordered way, he said at last: "Then you can count Mistress Margot such, she being the one here whom I call my friend, and who surely would see me win."

        "You cannot have her. It is a thing that is never done."

        "Well, it will be done now. There is no contrary law. She can do all I need, which is naught at all."

        So it was that Margot entered with him into the little space where he must wait till the sheriff's signal should sound. He had said that there would be nothing for her to do, which had an obvious sound, but there was one thing she tried, from which came a misadventure of a kind most ominous to those who looked on for Heaven's judgement to be revealed.

        They changed some words which may have been much to them, but were too low for others to hear (for whom they were not meant), and as they did so, and at the moment when they observed that Giles, at the far end of the field, had tested the last buckle of Sir Hugh's arms, and stood back, and that the sheriff's whistle was lifted to blow, Margot noticed that which she thought wrong.

        It was custom to have, on the handle of such a mace as Sir John bore, a short chain, by which it could be clasped to the wrist, so that it would not fall if the hand should be required for another use, and she saw this clasp to be loose. Thinking to do no more than an obvious thing, she put a hand to it, and with a quick deft motion the clasp snapped.

        "No," he said, "I will have it clear."

        He put a hand to it, but it would not free.

        She asked: "What have I done wrong?"

        "Nothing at all. It has been needing a smith's care. It has been trouble before."

        After struggling with it for a moment in vain, he drew out his poniard, striving to prise it free with the point, but the point broke. He tried again with a blade which had lost three inches or more, and this time he got the clasp free.

        He heard Master Clement call in a friend's voice: "Sir John, will you have mine?"

        "No," he said, "it is to these arms I am pledged, and naught else."

        Margot thought: "I did ill. It may be his death." But it was no time for words, which she did well to control, for the whistle blew.

        The line of spectators had become very still. They had prepared themselves to watch a duel at such odds that it seemed nothing but Heaven's interposition could save Sir John from a fate he had brought on his own head, and, before it began, here was he losing the point of one of the poor weapons he had. It seemed plain that angelic favours were not for him.

        The prior crossed himself as he saw. He said aloud: "God will not be mocked."

        He saw that Sir John of the Bitter Marsh, a man who, before he took the side of a rebel prince, had been reputed for many hazardous and audacious deeds, (as the scroll of pardon had set out), having been the means of reconciling the King and his son, so that he must be in the high favour of both, had come here swollen with earthly pride, and had fallen an easy prey to a trap, the like of which the Devil will often set for men in such an orgulous hour. From that moment, he watched the duel with the eyes of one who had no doubt what its end would be. So, indeed, did all there, unless it were Margot, who took what courage she could from a breathless prayer, and the one who, except those who fought, had most to lose or to gain. For, through it all, an old half-witted woman slept, unconscious that her poor remnant of life was the stake to be saved or won.

        Sir Hugh watched that bungling delay with some impatience, and some contempt, but no other change in a mind which had been confident before what the end would be.

        He was fully armoured, and how would Sir John face the sweep of a two-handed sword, heavy and long, which would not clatter on cuish or greave, but meet no more than the soiled pink hose which he now wore? Even if he should beat down the sword, which was hard to think, and the poniards must come into play, he was still no more than half-armed, and now the point of that final weapon was snapped away.

        Sir Hugh advanced with his sword raised in both hands, and his shield hung from his neck. He meant that the fight should end with one blow, as it was destined to do, and he thought, though Sir John might dodge and feint for a time, being lighter upon his legs, that such a stroke would not be long delayed.

        But Sir John did not feint or dodge. He also had resolved to risk all on a single stroke. He came straight on at a better pace than Sir Hugh, being more burdened with steel, could attain. He saw the great sword rise, circling aloft for the stroke which he had no fence to meet, and, at that moment, when Sir Hugh could not be instant to swerve, even had he been alert to the desperate chance his opponent took, the mace flew through the air.

        It was a throw that Sir John had practiced much, and it did not fail. From six yards distance, it came on Sir Hugh's jaw with a hammer-blow, which brought him down, so that he could do no more than to raise himself on one hand, and collapse again.

        Sir John advanced, in his hand his poniard, with its point gone.

        "Sir Hugh," he said, "do you yield recreant, and to be man of mine from this day?"

        There came no word from Sir Hugh. He had a smashed jaw, and he was scarce conscious of what he heard.

        The prior's voice, austere and loud as when he spoke from the Minster pulpit, sounded over the field: "Slay him not, Sir John, in his sins, for his hand moved."

        So, at least, it was mercy to think, if there be mercy in the granting of such life as could yet be his. Certainly, he would have time to repent, which the Prior of Monceaux regarded as more than a small matter. In fact, he lived for three years, but with broken speech, and a jaw that would never heal.

X.

        Sir John climbed into his saddle again.

        "Mistress Margot," he said, "I will beg this horse for a further day, but I will bring him to you tomorrow noon. I suppose now that your grandam will have your care.

        "Master Clement, I conclude you will take the dame back, for it is plain that she could not walk. You will have my thanks for that, and much more for a dagger I could not take."

        He said to Giles, who, with his fellows, was contriving a litter of spears and a spread cloak: "You will get him the best surgeon you can. You will know that you serve me from this hour. You have the look of a good man.

        "Sir Prior, you will be pleased that I seek an inn.

        After that, I may ask your office another way, for I seek also a bride."

        The prior thought again: "God will not be mocked, "in a very reverent mood. He considered, as he rode back to his cell, how far better the ordeal of battle may be than any justice dealt by the halting wisdom of men.

        He concluded, reflecting upon the event, that Judith Hoad had been betrayed by greed to abuse a gift which she had certainly had, so that she had denounced an innocent woman, after the last witch had been burned, and her profit must else have failed. But that he saw that the Divine Justice would not allow, so that all her cunning had come to naught.

        It was a conclusion that left him at equal ease, both for five who had burned, and one who was now free.

STATUS

        JOHN HENRY SMITH was one of those butchers who are accustomed to describe themselves as Purveyors of Meat, which means that he had two plate-glass windows, marble slabs, and paper frills round the necks of the dead sheep that ornamented his premises.

        He carried on business in the High Street of Picklehampton, his shop being next door to the residence of J. Hingeston Smith, a surgeon of good repute and practice.

        The coincidence of the initials of these two artists of the knife would have been less troublesome to the local postmaster but for the fact that, by one of those miscalculations which are frequently to be observed in the erection and numbering of the building of urban streets, No. 30 High Street was a considerable distance from No. 32, and the doctor's residence and the butcher's shop, being inserted between them, were known as No. 30a and No. 30b.

        Even that would not have mattered but for the carelessness of the correspondents of these two admirable representatives of the great Smith family, of whom some would put no number upon their envelopes, and others would put the figure 30 without the following letter which would have more exactly indicated their destination.

        The gentleman at No. 30, being named Porthwaite, made no claim upon such correspondence, and the postmaster adjudicated upon it by a simple rule. Letters addressed to Dr. J. H. Smith were to be delivered to the practitioner upon the human body, and those addressed to J. H. Smith, Esq., were to be treated in the same manner. Only those addressed to Mr. J. H. Smith were to be first offered to the manipulator of inferior carcasses.

        This method of discrimination, being generally accurate, would have avoided friction but for one important periodic exception. At the end of each quarter, Mr. J. H. Smith would go through his ledger, and send out peremptory requests for payment to his more dilatory debtors; and these persons, when replying with doubtful promises, or appeals for more extended credit, were liable to approach their creditor with the more complimentary designation; and when the purveyor of meat had realised the fact that such letters were systematically delivered next door, he was sufficiently annoyed to mention the matter to his son-in-law, a schoolmaster named William Hitchins, questioning the propriety of the discrimination which the postmaster was exercising against him.

        Mr. Hitchins felt the delicacy of the problem which had been thrust upon him, but he was of an honest disposition, a good Conservative, and well aware of the distinctions of Church and State by which our liberties broaden down in the manner so well described by the great Victorian poet. He answered firmly: "I'm afraid you can't make much fuss about that, Dad. It's a matter of status."

        He thought status to be an inoffensive word, and was pleased with himself for having put the matter so neatly, but he saw that his respected relative by marriage frowned no less heavily than before.

        "What's that, Bill?" the butcher asked uneasily.

        Bill hesitated. "Well, you see," he began rather awkwardly, "everyone can't be a doctor. It's an expensive training. They have to pay out a lot of money, and work for years before they begin practising."

        "I don't see much in that. My mother paid old Pickshank £30 for me to learn the butcherin' - and three years prenticed I were - and how does Jollyboy " - that was the name of the offending postmaster - "know that she didn't pay twice as much?"

        "It isn't exactly that," answered the embarrassed schoolmaster. "You see, doctoring's not a trade, it's a profession. It isn't like selling meat. You charge so much a pound, and you're expected to get all you can, but a doctor's expected to do all he can, whether he's paid or not, and he often has to attend people who he knows won't pay him at all."

        "I've let widow Gubbins have 1 lb. of the scrag end of the neck every Saturday for the last two year," protested the indignant butcher, "and a nice piece of the silverside of the round last Christmas, and who'll I ask to pay me for that? Don't I charge one-and-two for leg of Canterbury to everyone in Picklehampton except old Mrs. Palliser, and she one-and-four because we all know what she gets from them brewery shares? Isn't that difference enough? You don't want me to cheat the old lady, do you?"

        The schoolmaster was silent before the genuine anger which he had now aroused, and the purveyor burst out again: "Don't I pay taxes as well as he? Don't I work as hard, and do less harm, it's as likely as not? Don't I pay my debts? Never a summons for thirty year come Thursday, when I signed the lease of this shop? Never a fuss over a wrong weight . . . I might have done time to hear the way you talk of your Ada's dad."

        Bill felt that he hadn't talked very much since the conversation started, but that it would be an impolitic assertion to make. He endeavoured to turn the subject with the remark that his father-in-law not having done time was irrelevant. Many who had had that experience had a much better right to the title of esquire than the worthy surgeon. His readings of the biographies of the great had even suggested to his mind that no one is really eligible for the highest honours until he has been imprisoned by his fellow men.

II.

        The purveyor of meat, being unimpressed by his son-in-law's arguments, decided to call upon his brother Smith, and expostulate with him upon this discrimination of their correspondence. He was impelled to this foolishness rather by heat of temper than judgement, as an interval of cooler reflection would have shown him that, whatever grievance he might have, it was Mr. Jollyboy, and not his neighbour, who had sinned against him.

        Unfortunately, this realisation only came to him when he stood face to face with the surgeon on the soft thickness of the carpet of his consulting-room, and was being gently indicated toward a seat by one who did not doubt that his awkwardly silent visitor had called for a professional consultation. It was a common experience that his male patients (unlike the women, who would usually be of an immediate fluency) would show some nervous delay or hesitation before commencing to explain the ills from which they desired relief, and Dr. Smith had acquired some expertness in guiding them over this preliminary awkwardness. When he observed that Mr. Smith, being comfortably seated, yet remained inarticulate for some moments during which he had cleared his throat rather loudly two or three times, and put a restless hand to his neckerchief, he said, in his soothing suggestive voice: "Throat rather uncomfortable?"

        "It is a bit ticklish," admitted the embarrassed butcher.

        The surgeon rose, and laid a gently persuasive hand on his patient's arm. He led him to another chair at the side of the room, and switched on an electric bulb.

        "We'd better see into this," he said, in the professionally-kindly manner to which he owed about half of his reputation, and nine-tenths of his practice.

        In half a minute, he had a smaller searchlight exploring his neighbour's throat, and when this ordeal was over a somewhat dazed and frightened butcher was being told that he was in a "highly septic condition," but with the confident assurance that, as he had had the discretion to seek advice in time, he could rely upon a suitable operation to renew his endangered health.

        The surgeon then turned the conversation adroitly to the state of trade, and to the heavy rents which are charged in the High Street of Picklehampton, and, after gaining some indications of the condition of his neighbour's worldly prosperity in this manner, he mentioned casually that his fee for the operation - a removal of tonsils which were in a really dangerously septic condition - would be forty guineas.

        Mr. Smith, whose occupation led him to attach a high value to corporeal soundness, was seriously alarmed by the diagnosis which had been so unexpectedly thrust upon him. He felt as though a meat inspector were condemning his body as being unfit for food; but, from another angle, he could not think that the removal of what might be considered merely as a small quantity of offal could be worth so large a fee. He would have considered anything from a pound to thirty shillings would be fair, and indeed liberal remuneration.

        He looked the surprise he felt as the surgeon brought out this figure, in the tone of one who alludes casually to a natural law, and his emotions stirred him to a nervous murmur of protest.

        Dr. Smith did not affect to misunderstand this sound, with which he had become familiar on many similar occasions, but he replied at once, in a reassuring tone, that it was a particularly moderate fee. He mentioned that the removal of the tonsils of the daughter of a neighbouring ironfinder, Mr. Littlechin, had cost exactly twice the amount.

        Mr. Smith reflected that the young lady's tonsils must almost certainly have been smaller than his, and fell to the silence of an astonished man.

        At the earnest recommendation of his self-sought adviser, Mr. Smith went into a nursing-home, so that the operation, as he was assured, could be carried out in a thoroughly comfortable manner; and while he lay there, in the leisure of convalescence, he reflected upon the experience into which he had so unexpectedly blundered.

        His mind was still occupied upon the basis of the social distinction which Mr. Jollyboy had so offensively indicated, and he determined that, when he returned to his business, it should be conducted according to the higher professional standards which his son-in-law had

explained, and which had been so expensively illustrated.

III.

        It cannot be said that the purveying of meat was carried on very successfully at 30b High Street, Picklehampton, during the six months following Mr. Smith's return from the nursing home.

        It is true that some of his poorer customers made purchases which must have been in excess of their own requirements; but the majority of the more affluent inhabitants of the district transferred their custom to Messrs. Preedy & Preedy, a firm which had its headquarters in the county town of Potminster, and had recently opened a branch at the further end of the street.

        Casual customers who had entered Mr. Smith's shop, undeterred by the absence of window-tickets, would not be served by an assistant, but approached by the burly proprietor, who would chat with them genially for a few minutes upon the state of trade, and the nature of their occupations, or that of their husbands, before he would put a price upon the joint which they desired to purchase, and it was then liable to appear an arbitrary or even fantastic figure to those who had no key to the method by which it had been decided.

        But though the business might decline, there was no evidence of unhappiness on the face of its owner. His bank balance, which had previously been substantial was still sufficient to resist the assaults of circumstances, and, whether as the result of the violent end of his tonsils, or from other causes, his health and spirits appeared to be maintained at a very enviable level, until the day when every inhabitant of Picklehampton was stirred to a pleasant excitement by the news that he had been arrested on an information laid against him by the executor of Mrs. Palliser, of whom we have heard already, and who had died during the previous month.

IV.

        Mrs. Palliser had been increasingly erratic, and even childish, in her business dealings for several years, but she was a popular character, and received the indulgence which is accorded to wealthy people in such condition of health, while occasion has not yet arisen to dispute their wills. When her executor, Mr. Abel Servitor, of the legal firm of Servitor, Porson & Servitor, found an

outstanding account from Mr. J. H. Smith amounting to £89 3s. 7d., for the meat supplied to her during the previous month, he first supposed that he was confronted by some clerical inaccuracy, such as the placing of shillings in the column intended for pounds, but when he discovered that the old lady had paid accounts for four previous months on the same scale, he was bound to take a more serious view of the matter.

        He applied to Mr. Smith for an explanation, and receiving a reply which he considered to be an audacious avowal of deliberate fraud, he felt that he must take such action as would bring the criminal to justice, and vindicate his administration of the estate.

V.

        The little court of Picklehampton was crowded when the well-known figure of the purveyor of meat entered the dock and it was observed that a full bench of magistrates had assembled to hear the case against him.

        It was also to be observed that Mr. Smith's lawyer, Mr. Percival Clements (Sims, Barker & Co.) was engaged in a very animated though whispered colloquy with his client, which culminated in the first exciting incident of the day, when he rose and informed the court that he had decided to retire from the case.

        The Chairman of the bench, a local land-owner, Mr. Benjamin Tidmarsh, who had been blessed by nature with the appearance of a benevolent bulldog, asked the accused whether he required time to arrange for other legal assistance, in which event the case should be put back until later in the day; but Mr. Smith replied with some emphasis that he had resolved to defend himself,

and it proceeded accordingly.

        It was opened by a young barrister, Mr. Seton-Seton, who outlined it in a manner which caused many astonished and indignant looks to be directed upon the exasperated butcher, who was only restrained from repeated interruptions by the sharp rebukes of the presiding magistrate.

        It would be proved, said Mr. Seton-Seton, that Mr. Smith had served the deceased lady, and her husband before her, for more than twenty years, and there appeared to be no doubt that he had gained the confidence of his customers, so that his accounts had been paid for a long time past without the detailed examination to which they should have been subjected. It appeared also that Mrs. Palliser, who had been a lady of acute and vigorous intellect, had become careless during the later stages of the painful illness from which she died, particularly in the drawing of cheques, and

there appeared to be no doubt - it was only fair to say that there was no suggestion of forgery - that about six months ago, possibly by some quite innocent clerical error, a monthly statement had been rendered by the accused showing about twenty times the correct amount as owing for the meat supplied during the period. Finding, probably to his own surprise, that he had received a cheque for the amount which his statement had showed as owing - amount which it must have been obvious to him at once could not possible be correct - had not only succumbed to the temptation to retain the money, but had conceived the daring and nefarious project of sending in a statement at the end of the next month containing what must have been deliberate errors of similar magnitude. This attempt proving successful, he had repeated the audacious fraud on two further occasions, receiving payments to a total of £343. 4s. 4d. for a supply of meat of a true value of not more than £15, or £20 at the most, and, but for Mrs. Palliser's death, he would doubtless have received at least one further payment, for which his account had been already rendered on the same scale.

        Mr. Seton-Seton then proceeded to call his witnesses, but as their evidence went no further than to confirm the case which he had set out, and as the facts were not disputed by the accused, who declined the invitation of the bench to cross-examine upon them, they need not detain us.

        "That is my case, your worships," Mr. Seton-Seton concluded, in the tone of one who has established a position of impregnable strength, and Mr. Tidmarsh looked at the prisoner, "Well?" he asked enquiringly.

        Mr. Smith, although a man not normally wasteful of words, was fluent, and even - such is the effect of honest indignation - occasionally eloquent in his reply. He did not desire to give evidence. He did not dispute the facts. He was content to address the magistrates from where he stood to refute the baseless and calumnious construction which had been placed upon them.

        His speech was long and discursive, for he was unpractised in oratory, and it will be convenient to summarise it. He pointed out that his position was not that of a mere middleman, buying goods from one direction to dispose of them in others. It might be said truly that, for the past thirty years, the health of Picklehampton had been in his conscientious and able hands.

        On his knowledge and skill in a business to which he had been apprenticed in early youth, on his judgement of the beasts to buy, on the skill with which their existence was terminated, on the integrity which only vended such meat as was sound, fresh, and uncontaminated, had the health and happiness of Picklehampton depended for thirty years. What could be considered a just remuneration for such services, and by whom should they be rightly paid?

        In answering that question he had been guided by the practice and example of another resident, who also laboured to maintain the health of the community, his neighbour and namesake, Dr. J. Hingeston Smith.

        "He told me himself," he concluded, "that he charged John Littlechin eighty guineas for the same operation upon his daughter for which he charged me half that amount, and I afterwards learned that he had done it to Thomas Carstock for five. I have tried to charge my customers in the same way. If a carcass, with my expenses upon it, costs me 9. 1/4d. a lb., I'm no better off, or maybe a bit worse, if I average its sale at that figure. I don't suppose Dr. Smith was much better of or worse because he took old Carstock's tonsils out for what he did. But there's a lot of difference between five guineas and eighty. So if I sell meat to my poor folk at 9. 1/4d., or even give it away, I have to work out what people as well off as Mr. Littlechin ought to pay.

        "I thought I knew what Mrs. Palliser's income was, and I charged her accordingly. But I've learnt since that I was wrong. I know now how well off she was, and when I go home tonight I shall send in a further account for the undercharges of the past five months."

        He ended with a personal appeal to Mr. Tidmarsh, from whom he had purchased a considerable part of his English mutton during many previous years, as to whether his transactions had ever deviated from the straight path of rectitude, and with a suggestion that, if he had done wrong, the more imposing figure of Dr. J. Hingeston Smith should be standing beside him.

        The Chairman grinned upon him appreciatively as his peroration ended.

        "Smith," he said, "you're about the most impudent rogue that I have ever met, and I've seen some in that dock. What about restitution? You don't want to hold on to the old lady's money now you've got caught, do you?"

        The magistrates' clerk looked up at Mr. Tidmarsh in some anxiety as to what he might be going to say next. An order for restitution may be a very proper proceeding, but compounding a felony from the bench is a very different matter, and Mr. Tidmarsh's methods were often such as to disturb the mind of the professional lawyer. But his offer, if such it could be considered, was not accepted. Mr. Smith felt that he could never purvey another joint with dignity or self-respect, should he make such a confession of wrong-doing as would be implied in the return of the money he had received.

        Besides, he was not conscious of evil. He had the support of example and precedent. He had acted as he thought right, and had almost ruined an excellent business in pursuit of the ideal which had been set before him.

        He replied that he had only charged what he thought fair, and not a shilling should be returned.

        The bench consulted together. The Rev. Clement Dawman thought that the state of the butcher's mind required investigation. Dr. Feltwell said that you couldn't fine him enough for such a wholesale robbery. "He needs a few weeks' hard," was his uncompromising conclusion.

        The Chairman was inclined to think that it was a case for the sessions. The clerk, being consulted, was of the same opinion.

        In the end, it was resolved that Smith should be remanded in custody for a week, during which time there would be opportunity for observation as to the degree of mental responsibility which could be attributed to him.

VI.

        Smith (we must now avoid calling him mister, for all readers of the daily press are aware that the designation ceases when an accused man is remanded without bail on a criminal charge, to be resumed if he be ultimately acquitted, or otherwise about three months after his sentence ends) was not entirely unhappy during his first week of captivity. He had the support of a good conscience, and he remembered what he had been told by his son-in-law concerning the manner in which the greatest men of every age had been imprisoned by their inferior contemporaries.

        He had reason to regret that his tender for the supply of the prison beef had not been 1/4d. lb. lower, in which case it would certainly have been accepted, and he was correctly confident that he would have been better fed. He would have been very glad of an extra blanket. Beyond those details, he had few discomforts, and no regrets.

        He was offered two books from the prison library, which he accepted, though he was indifferent to their titles, and, after a time, being weary of his own thoughts, he took up one of them and discovered it to be a volume of Aesop's Fables, with which he had no previous familiarity.

        He read a number of these anecdotes with interest, though finding it hard to believe that they were veracious narratives; but it occurred to him, after a time, that, whether true or not, they contained some shrewdness of observation, and the occasional salt of a deeper wisdom.

        But he read nothing which appeared to have any personal application, until he came to the account of the man who owned an ass and a dog, and the former animal, observing that the dog would jump on his master's lap, and was petted and rewarded for that audacity, whereas he himself, doing his duty patiently, but attempting no such familiarities, was overloaded and beaten, decided that, should he qualify by the same methods, he might also expect to share the favours which he observed. On which thought, he had jumped in through the window, and attempted, as best he might, to seat himself on the knees of his astounded owner.

        But the poor ass had not merely failed to gain the rewards which he had anticipated. He had - such is the injustice of man - been ejected with ignominy, and beaten with many stripes.

        Smith, who slept badly owing to the economy of blankets already mentioned, had a dream in the night, the details of which he could not afterwards remember distinctly, but it remained fixed in his mind that he had been engaged in some form of competition with Dr. J. Hingeston Smith, in the course of which he had developed into an unmistakable ass.

        It is an opinion which some will share; and though he did not adopt it with any confidence, and preferred the six months in the second division which was his ultimate fate to the ignominy of any public confession of error or offer of restitution, yet it was a doubt which continued to disturb his mind, even after he had served his sentence, and become Mr. Smith again in the accustomed donation to the Christmas Fund which was regularly opened in its benevolent columns.

VII.

        Such was Mr. Smith's experimental effort to introduce the higher ethical standards of the professional to the commercial world, and such its abortive issue. It ended without any revolutionary consequences, even within the narrow limits of Picklehampton, and it remains to chronicle only one concluding episode.

        It was about three weeks after the defeated but unrepentant butcher had resumed his supervision of a business the conduct of which, during his unavoidable absence, had been restored by an intelligent wife and an unimaginative manager to the normal order of such establishments, that Dr. J. Hingeston Smith entered the shop.

        Mr. Smith, who had made no further effort to emulate the ethical standards of his professional neighbour, told the assistant who had bustled forward, to attend to another customer, of whom there were several present at the time, and himself advanced, with some grimness of jaw, to this unexpected encounter.

        "I want," Dr. Smith said, "a beefsteak. I am particular in what I eat, and I should be obliged if you would yourself select it for me."

        Mr. Smith made no audible reply, but he picked up a suitable knife, and advanced upon a side of excellent beef which was suspended at the rear of the shop. He cut the steak with the skill and judgement which long experience gave, and it was one which the most exacting of chefs would have felt it an honour to grill.

        He laid it on the counter for a moment, for the admiration of his brother artist, and then commenced to wrap it up without the ceremony of weighing.

        Dr. J. Hingeston Smith pulled out a wallet of notes. "The price will be?" he enquired courteously.

        Mr. J. Henry Smith spoke for the first time. "Forty guineas," he said. His voice was irresolute, and yet there sounded in it a latent obstinacy. In his eyes was the weary look of a dog approached by another from whom he has about equal expectation of a snarl or a wagging tail.

        "It is a price," Dr. Smith replied, with the same grave courtesy as before, "which I am well able to pay."

        He counted out the money, and then extended a hand which the butcher took in a hearty grip.

        "Had you charged me less," Dr. Smith said, "I would never have spoken to you again."

        There was some difference of opinion among those who heard of the incident during the next twenty-four hours (which is to say the whole population of Picklehampton) as to which of the principals in this encounter had carried of the honours of war, but we may conclude that the ancient borough had two citizens of whom it had no reason to be ashamed.

WHO ELSE BUT SHE?

        CHIEF INSPECTOR PINKEY was annoyed. The crime (for he was disposed to agree with the view of the local police that the possibility of suicide could be eliminated) had been committed within a few minutes of 5 p.m. on Thursday last, and now it was 11-30 on Tuesday morning, and it was only an hour ago that the assistance of Scotland Yard had been solicited by the Chief Constable of Buckfordshire. Within ten minutes of that telephone conversation, Pinkey had been in a taxi for Paddington. Now he gazed at the high banks of the railway cutting, pleasant in October sunshine, as the express pulled easily up the Chiltern gradients, and wondered how many dues had been blurred or obliterated before he had been called in to clear up a puzzle which the local officers had been unwilling to consider beyond their powers.

        Well, there was nothing new in that. He knew that it was of the first importance that he should stifle his annoyance and accept it cheerfully.

        Any impatience on his part or affectation of superiority would make a difficult problem even harder than it must inevitably be. He must just put out of his mind all he had heard, all he had read, even all the possibilities that had entered his mind as he had thought it over during the last few days (anticipating that he would soon be travelling in this direction), and approach it with an open unprejudiced mind. That was always the safest way.

        He got out at Ricksfield to change into the local train.

        The village of Beacon's Cross lies about two miles from the station of that name. Inspector Pinkey remembered reading of this distance, and hoped that he would not be obliged to walk. Probably there would be a taxi. But you never could be sure at these little country stations. And he had a rather heavy bag.

        It was with real gratitude, disposing him to an unusual geniality, that he was greeted by a tall man of somewhat military aspect, who introduced himself as Inspector Trackfield of the County Constabulary, and proposed that they should motor together to Bywater Grange.

        "I'm driving myself," he added, "so that we can talk freely. There aren't many places where you can be equally certain that you couldn't be overheard."

        Inspector Pinkey had a moment of wonder as to whether this local policeman really believed this to be a remark of unusual profundity. Was he anxious to show that the country constabulary are shrewder than is commonly believed in the metropolitan area?

        "Yes," he said, in a rather drier voice than he had meant it to be, "when you've looked under the seat."

        "Under the seat?" Inspector Trackfield had a moment of surprise. Then his face cleared. "Oh yes. I see. You don't mean that too literally. You mean when you've had a good look. Oh yes, of course."

        By this time they were in the car.

II.

        The two officers exchanged platitudes upon the weather and the Cotswold Hills. Inspector Pinkey was too accustomed to the delicate operation of taking over investigations from less experienced or less competent hands to feel any awkwardness, but he knew the importance of doing it in a tactful way. It was to open the subject rather than to gain information that he remarked:

        "I understand that the inquest had been adjourned?"

        But to Inspector Trackfield, remembering the unadvertised reason for that adjournment, it was an unpleasant question to hear, and many would have given it a shorter answer. Chief Inspector Pinkey could observe that Trackfield might be an obtuse, but he was an honest man. He said:

        "Yes . . . You see, I told the Coroner yesterday morning that we were about to arrest Lady Denton, and so he agreed to adjourn, sine die, in the usual way. After that, Sir Henry said he'd like to go over the evidence again before we committed ourselves finally and then he said he wasn't quite satisfied and he'd decided to call you in."

        Sir Henry Titterton was the Chief Constable of Buckfordshire.

        "The evidence against Lady Denton must have appeared fairly strong. You felt satisfied of her guilt?"

        The answer came rather stiffly: "Obviously. I applied for a warrant for her arrest."

        Inspector Pinkey thought silently: "And you are still convinced!" He reminded himself again of the necessity of keeping an open mind. It might be true, as the obvious often is - but not always. What he said was: "Going by the press photographs, she seems to be quite an attractive woman."

        Inspector Trackheld agreed. Exceptionally. He added that she was very popular also.

        "Not the sort you would expect to be guilty of such a crime?"

        "Not in the least." Trackheld was quite frank about that. The experienced ears of the Scotland Yard officer caught a tone which suggested that, though the speaker had been resolved to arrest her, he had not been entirely insensible of the lady's charm. It was confirmed by the remark that followed, rather stolidly spoken:

        "But you have to go on the evidence."

        "That is an indisputable proposition, which makes it particularly important that the evidence should be considered by those who are most competent to handle it . . ." But at this point the conversation was interrupted by their arrival at Bywater Grange.

III.

        Inspector Pinkey had a busy day. He examined everyone whom he could find the faintest reason to examine, and did this with such tact and adroitness that he obtained not only a willing repetition of tales which had already been fully told, but even one or two additional details, the importance of which he was not yet able to estimate accurately. He took this evidence orally, maintaining an easy conversational tone, and the witnesses might have been surprised had they known how accurately he had recalled their words, as he had compared them later with the signed statements which the county police had secured already.

        When evening came he retired to his own room - Lady Denton had offered him the hospitality of the Grange - to review the evidence that he had obtained.

        First, there was the medical evidence and that of the post-mortem. It did not eliminate the possibility of suicide, but it rendered it extremely improbable. Sir David Denton had been shot while standing at his desk in the ground-floor study, facing the window, though some distance from it. He had been shot with the pistol which he kept in the top right-hand drawer of that desk. The drawer had been closed.

        The bullet had entered under and a little behind the left ear, and had penetrated the brain in an upward and somewhat forward position. Sir Lionel Tipshift, who had conducted the post-mortem, advised that it was possible - physically possible - for the wound to have been self-inflicted if the weapon had been held in the right hand, passed under the left arm, and pointed upward. Possible - but absurd.

        The improbability had been increased by the fact that Sir David had been left-handed. Sir Lionel Tipshift expressed the opinion, with a self-confidence which may appear to have been well-grounded, that the shot had been fired by someone who had stood behind the murdered man. Most probably one who was known to him and could approach him thus without exciting suspicion. Someone also who had known where the pistol was kept and had been able to obtain or secrete it. A member of the household, if not of the family, was clearly indicated.

        Sir Lionel thought it highly probable that the shot had been fired by someone considerably shorter than Sir David, who had been a tall man. Lady Denton fulfilled all these conditions. She was the only one who was freely and naturally admitted to her husband's study. She was a foot shorter than he. She had been with him immediately after, if not at the moment that the shot was fired.

        There was strong suspicion here, if not proof. And if she did not do it, who did?

        As to that, there were possibilities, but they were not numerous. Sir David had been generally disliked. A mean-natured, suspicious, bad-tempered man, of a bullying habit. Everyone in the house appeared to have feared him except the cook and (perhaps) his wife.

        A few days before the tragedy he had invaded the kitchen with some complaint, and the cook, a woman with a temper to equal his own, had threatened to lay a broom across his shoulders if he didn't clear out.

        After that he had required his wife to dismiss her, which was scarcely surprising, but this she had stubbornly refused to do. There had been rows over this and Lady Denton was known to have had a bruised arm. But with an obstinate defiance with which she occasionally varied her submissions, she had declined to give way. She had held stubbornly to her point that the kitchen was her domain and that Sir David should have kept out of it.

        Inspector Pinkey had interviewed the cook. She had expressed her opinion of Sir David with much freedom and force of language, and it had not been favourable.

        She did not profess to regret his end. She affirmed her conviction that he had committed suicide, and a good thing, too. Yet the Inspector decided without difficulty that he could eliminate the cook. Had Sir David been banged on the head with a flat-iron in one of the back passages, it might have been a more doubtful matter.

        Eliminating her, he disposed also of the two other female members of the staff. They were a housemaid and a kitchen-maid, and it appeared that they had been together in the kitchen when the shot was fired.

        Apart from a conspiracy of guilt or concealment, the evidence of each was an alibi for the other two. Considering this and the inherent improbability that they were concerned in the crime, the Inspector dismissed them from the list of those on whom suspicion might fall. Beyond that they could throw no light on the event. They were united in the suggestion of suicide, with the obvious intention of defending their mistress from all implication of murder, but it was not a point on which their opinions were of substantial value.

        Besides the women, the inmates of the house had been two only - Lady Denton herself and Gerard Denton, a half-brother of the murdered man.

        Lady Denton's account was simple and explicit. She had been in her own room, the door of which faced that of Sir David's study, when she had heard the shot. In a vague alarm, though without guessing what had occurred, she had crossed the hall, opened the study door, seen her husband sprawled on the floor with a revolver beside his hand, and had screamed for help, at which Gerard had come out of the library at the further end of the passage.

        Gerard Denton's account agreed with this narrative. He had been reading in the library when he had heard the shot, though not very distinctly. The doors of Bywater Grange were thick and well fitted. He doubted whether he would have been sufficiently disturbed or curious to inquire the cause, but that he had been roused the next moment by an agonised scream from Lady Denton: "Gerard! Gerard!" and had run at once to her aid.

        He told this tale clearly enough, though with some agitation of manner and perhaps a little over-assertion, which might be natural enough under the circumstances. Supported as it was by Lady Denton's account, it seemed to remove suspicion from him also, and concentrated it the more surely upon herself. He was evidently conscious of this, and, like the servants, he showed anxiety to assert her innocence. He dwelt on the note of surprise and horror which he had heard in her first scream. He agreed with Lady Denton that no one could have escaped by the study door and along the passage, after the shot was fired, without being seen either by her or him.

        There remained the evidence of the gardener and his boy, and if credence were to be given to their account and to that of the inmates of the house, it appeared to demonstrate that no one had done it at all, which was absurd, or that it was a case of suicide, which Inspector Pinkey was very disinclined to believe.

        The gardener was an old man, stiff with rheumatism and very deaf. He had been working on the drive, trimming the edges, out of sight of the study window, but in view of anyone who should approach or leave by the front entrances. The drive curved towards the house. It passed the study, which had a French window opening on to a narrow lawn. This window had been wide open.

        The boy had been working on the drive also. He was nearer the house. He was in such a position at the bend of the drive that he could see the study window, while the gardener, who could not see it, could see him.

        He was a boy slow of words, but of a perpetual grin. His lack of fluency was further impeded by the fact that, when Inspector Pinkey interviewed him, he was sucking a very large sweet. He said that he had heard the shot and had commenced to run to the window in the anticipation - perhaps 'hope' would not be an unfair word - that 'something was up'. He had been called back by the gardener, and had reluctantly continued weeding until Mr. Gerard had appeared from the window, and questioned him as to having seen anyone come out previously.

        Had he done so? No - no one. Except, of course Mr. Gerard. When? When he said. How long after the shot was fired? Quite a time. Five minutes? Yes, perhaps. Perhaps not. Quite a time. Mr. Gerard had come straight to him to know whether he had seen anything. Then he had gone on to question Mr. Bulger.

        Mr. Bulger had confirmed this. He had not heard any shot, being far too deaf, but he had seen the young imp start to run up the drive, and had called him back. He always did try to run away if he was left out of sight for a moment. He had supposed that he was trying to slip round the house to talk to Mabel, as usual. Mabel was the kitchen-maid. The Inspector, who did not miss much, remembered having noticed that she also appeared to be inordinately fond of sweets, but these facts did not occur to him as being of any material significance, either separately or in combination - about which he was to learn his error before many hours had passed.

        There was another line of investigation which Inspector Trackfield had explored already. That was in reference to Mr. Redwing, Sir David's late secretary. He had been dismissed two days before the murder - dismissed suddenly on an accusation of financial dishonesty, which he had strenuously denied, after a very violent scene.

        He was still lodging at the Railway Station Hotel scarcely two miles away. Inspector Trackfield admitted that he had fixed on him at the first as the most probable culprit. It appeared that he had said in the hotel bar that he would never leave the district till he had had his rights. He had been to a local solicitor who had declined to take up the case.

        The only difficulty in fixing the murder upon him was that he had not been there. On that point the evidence appeared to be absolute and impregnable. The landlady of the hotel and about a dozen other disinterested people would swear to that. Inspector Pinkey decided to make his own enquiries in that direction also but he recognised that it did not sound a very hopeful one.

        As he thought over the result of his first day's investigations he was inclined to the opinion that he might have stayed in London without any disadvantage to the ends of justice. Everyone might agree that Lady Denton was an attractive woman and unlikely to be a murderess but as Inspector Trackfield had said you can't go against the evidence. And once again. if she hadn't done it who had?

IV.

        Inspector Pinkey sat at breakfast with Lady Denton. They were alone. Mr. Gerard was understood to be unwell and having his breakfast in bed.

        Lady Denton herself recurred to the subject on which they had already had conversation the previous evening.

        "If there's anything you haven't asked me I hope you won't hesitate, whatever it is, if you think it m