homes; you men of bloodshed are parties to this trade; you and your kind, my lord, are making hell of our England. How, you ask, shall the poor men live if their masters do not thrive? I will tell you the truth : they will begin to live and rejoice in the fear of God; their children will dance and wax strong in labour and laughter; they will cease to punish for themselves official criminals whom their masters uplift to destroy them. My Lord, yesterday I beheld these officials at their worship-landowners, great lawyers, rich merchants. I beheld them worshipping in the name of One they destroy to get fat upon their bellies, guineas in their pockets. And I beheld the millstones already prepared. For even as ye do to the least of these (here the little clergyman pointed at the four stalwart defendants) or any of the multitude of slave-children in our mills and mines-ye do unto that Divine Man who shall come in His glory and cast down the mighty from their seats.'

"Here the judge hid his face in his hand and his wig seemed to be agitated by some emotion; but whether he concealed a smile or something of more moment, is not evident. But the Counsellor now found his opportunity again :

"Counsel. One word more, Mr. Parson Jeremiah I beg pardon, Mr. Trevenna !-your latest words appear to me as facetious as they are doubtless prophetic. I had already been informed that you are gifted to see visions. Do we understand these remarks to be prompted by such gifts ?

"Rev. C.T. Aye, you may do so. And my vision grows in clarity.

"Counsel. How so, Sir Prophet?

"Rev. C. T. (And here the witness clossd his eyes and lifted his face, extraordinary white and stern, to the Judge.) I have a vision of blind, foresworn, and palsied men, who, afraid for the skin of their souls, and the lining of their purses, seek to buttress with their rotting

crutches alike the everlasting Church, and the temporal State they serve in mockery."

Mr. Trevenna was then ordered to stand down.

After a brief summing up and a briefer deliberation by the jury, the men were found guilty. The judge condemned three to a life sentence and Luke to the gallows.

Charity Hornbuckle who had given her evidence fearlessly and unshakenly concerning the adventure in the boat, but who, as one defendant's sweetheart, was held by the judge to be too much interested to be credited, crossed over to the dock, flung her arms round her lover, and exclaimed to the judge, her cornflowerblue eyes blazing at him in their wrath,

"If he'm a murderer, 'tis his wedded wife Charity Hornbuckle shall be-so 'tis-and hang by the same rope!"

Then the condemned men were removed to the cells.

A

CHAPTER XLI

FORGIVEN TRESPASSES

FTER a spell of radiant Easter weather, the heavens deluged the earth with merciless rain. Day and night, never wavering, without wind or sun, the waters fell, and the brooks raged from the rockstrewn moor down weeping coombes to the sullen sea. The sheep huddled together in muddy pens, their hay and turnips sodden, and their hopes in the young grass and heather shoots of the moor damped and forgotten.

But the fishermen, even had the heavens smiled above and the sea shone below, would still have had heavy and angry hearts, because of the Kellinack doom. The more fanatical Methodists perhaps found, even while they also grieved, a gloomy satisfaction in the wages that were waiting upon sin. Thus none wept oftener than Martha, although she found consolation in the rain as proof of the divine displeasure : "Drop down, ye heavens, from above,' she would quote, "and let the skies pour down righteousness! And she would find endless opportunity of forcing the most reluctant omens to support the Almighty or to condemn the law's iniquity.

"We must not forget, Martha," said Mr. Trevenna one night in gentle reproof," that in His wisdom as well as in His love the Lord is ever mindful of His own."

"Iss: dessay ! though, times, one could wish His wisdom wer' a bit more liker ourn!" she replied, her

temper more disastrous than usual to her logic. "Ravens may carry bread an' flesh to Tishbites an' that, if they please; but didn't I see a pair on em' a sennight come Monday, sarvin' their own nestlings fine an' cruel-drove 'em away, they did, time an' ag'in, from getting a croomb o' the dead lamb they'd settled on? I axes ye, Parson, if they wasn't mindful of their own, same as lawyers an' hangmen !”

One little ray of hope would still loosen tongues when silence sat by the dull hearth: Lady Evangeline might yet win the King's pardon. For the justice of the criminal code was beginning to be questioned by authority as well as the people; and if none were yet zealous or honest enough to confess that the law was vindictive, the King's clemency was liberally exercised.

No word however came from Lady Evangeline; but it was certain to Mr. Trevenna that she would speak when the word was ready. He knew that her efforts to reach the King's ear, and, if possible, to let Horatio relate to him his own knowledge of the case and show him the tablets, might well be delayed by the intricacies of Court etiquette.

As a matter of fact the audience was at first refused. For Chief Justice Coolinge, to whom it was the King's custom to apply for particulars in any case reaching his kindly ear, had given his own summary of the trial. As the tablets were no part of the evidence he did not speak of them, though to Lady Evangeline they were of so much importance; nor did he refer to the convicts' high character, although this had been a strong point in the defence. The fact of their being smugglers stamped them in the eyes of his Majesty as evil-doers, and their crime as having no extenuation.1 But, nothing daunted, Lady Evangeline had then brought her father's and uncle's influence to bear upon the King. Because his daughter vowed that, unless

1 Vide Appendix E E.

the men were pardoned, the whole story, including her husband's hanging of an innocent man, should be published, the Earl bestirred himself if only to obviate the attachment of any slur thereafter upon his grandson's name, the future Baron Walrond. The Archdeacon, happily a favourite of the Queen, to whom he looked for his See, sought an audience and was not refused. Hence it was that on the following day Lady Evangeline herself saw the Queen, who, despite her exaction of the utmost court formalism from all her subjects, soon found a gentle heart beating within her own bosom, and took her straight to the King himself. It was rumoured afterwards that his Majesty astonished his Consort mightily when he vowed he would have to pardon Robespierre himself if so monstrous fine a female as Lady Evangeline had pleaded for him. But possibly the fact of the dishonour threatening the two noble and loyal families had its weight. The story of Reginald Walrond's refusal of the challenge may also have influenced the King in his young subjects' favour, and turned the balance; for he hated duelling, whatever its pretext. Anyhow the free pardon was granted.

Instantly upon the completion of the King's warrant -and there was no time to be lost if it was to arrive at Bodmin before Luke's execution-Lady Evangeline secured permission for Horatio and Walter to accompany the King's messenger into Cornwall under charge of Mr. Cornroach. Nothing more seemly could be devised. The boys had been at home during these trying days and were elate with the excitement of themselves being bearers of the joyful news. Horatio indeed would have insisted upon this arrangement, had every one opposed it.

For on the evening before the news of the King's clemency arrived at Golden Square, Horatio had had a big talk with his mother. Even since the visit to Tamerhill he had been rapidly developing a manly