ONE:"Peace, wretch!" said De Boteler, choking with passion. "Here, let these plotters be confined separately till the morrowand, Luke," he added, to the old steward, "let you and John Oakley go instantly to Holgrave, and see him removed from the keep, and put him into a warm bedand take ye a flask of wine and pour some down his throatand see that the leech attend him." He now turned to Isabella and strove to dispel from her mind the sad thoughts that the last half hour had called up, but it was not, as the baron imagined, the remembrance of her murdered child alone, which had sent a paleness to her cheek, and a tremor through her frame; it was rather the thought that through judging rashly she had been an accessory to the death of one who perhaps deserved reward rather than punishment.The court of Pie-powder was situated at the extremity of the fair-green, about twenty paces beyond the last stall: the court was a kind of tent, with a large, high-backed chair in the centre for the judge, a long table being placed before him, on which were balances and weights of various descriptions, to ascertain the truth of any charges that might be preferred against the sellers at the fair: there was also a smaller balance, a stone, and a small phial of liquid, to prove the weight and purity of any coin that might be doubted. At each extremity of the table was a bench, on which sat six men, to act as jurors. Although in a fair, the court was conducted with some attention to propriety; the clerk, who sat as judge, assumed as much importance as a dignitary of a higher tribunal; and, as the crowd approached, hallooing and vociferating, with the culprit, two men, who stood at the door with maces in their hands, prevented the rush of the people: and, by order of the judge, the accuser, the offender, and two witnesses were the only persons permitted to enter. The charge was laid;the foreign dusty-foot was accused of defrauding the accuser's wife, one Martha Fuller, of the value of half a noble.
TWO:"I do swear," said De Boteler, taking a crucifix from the monk, who extended one towards him, and kneeling before Richard; "I do swear, upon this blessed cross, and before my liege lord, that if my child is restored to me, so that I can claim him as my own, I will release every bondman within this manor, and that, from thenceforth, there shall be no more bondage in the barony of Sudley."The boys were now sixteen and eighteen, fine, manly young fellows, working cheerfully on Odiam and rejoicing their father's heart. Reuben watched over them sometimes with an odd kind of anxietythey were so satisfactory that he felt it could not last. He remembered that conversation he had overheard in the trap on the way home from Rye, and though nothing had happened since to remind him of it or cause him fresh alarm, he could never quite shake off the cold thrills it had given him.
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