e and horror. The body remained
unchanged. Loosing her grip, she turned on the bystanders with a look
of mingled pride and scorn.

"Take this from heaven for a witness that my father is innocent."

The tension was too much for the spectators, and one by one they left
the room. Ralph only remained, and when Sim returned to consciousness
he raised him up, and took him back to Fornside.

CHAPTER III. IN THE RED LION.

What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?
_Midsummer Night's Dream._

Time out of mind there had stood on the high street of Wythburn a
modest house of entertainment, known by the sign of the Red Lion.
Occasionally it accommodated the casual traveller who took the valley
road to the north, but it was intended for the dalesmen, who came
there after the darkness had gathered in, and drank a pot of
home-brewed ale as they sat above the red turf fire.

This was the house to which Wilson's body had been carried on the
morning it was found on the road. That was about Martinmas. One night,
early in the ensuing winter, a larger company than usual was seated in
the parlor of the little inn. It was a quaint old room, twice as long
as it was broad, and with a roof so low that the taller shepherds
stooped as they walked under its open beams.

From straps fixed to the rafters hung a gun, a whip, and a horn. Two
square windows, that looked out over the narrow causeway, were covered
by curtains of red cloth. An oak bench stood in each window recess.
The walls throughout were panelled in oak, which was carved here and
there in curious archaic devices. The panelling had for the most part
grown black with age; the rosier spots, that were polished to the
smoothness and brightness of glass, denoted the positions of
cupboards. Strong settles and broad chairs stood in irregular places
about the floor, which was of the bare earth, grown hard as stone, and
now sanded. The chimney nook spanned the width of one end of the room.
It was an open ingle with seats in the wall at each end, and the fire
on the ground between them. A goat's head and the horns of an ox were
the only ornaments of the chimney-breast, which was white-washed.

On this night of 1660 the wind was loud and wild without. The
snowstorm that had hung over the head of Castenand in the morning had
come down the valley as the day wore on. The heavy sleet rattled at
the windows. In its fiercer gusts it drowne