urt being wasted with such
questions.

Justice Hide overruled the objection.

Amid much sensation, the witness gave the name of the sheriff of
Cumberland, Wilfrey Lawson.

Continuing his evidence in a defiant manner, the witness said he
remembered the deceased agent, James Wilson. He saw him last the day
before his death. It was in Carlisle they met. Wilson showed witness a
warrant with which he was charged for Ray's arrest, and told him that
Ray had often threatened him in years past, and that he believed he
meant to take his life. Wilson had said that he intended to be
beforehand, for the warrant was a sure preventive. He also said that
the Rays were an evil family; the father was a hard, ungrateful brute,
who had ill repaid him for six years' labor. The mother was best; but
then she was only a poor simple fool. The worst of the gang was this
Ralph, who in the days of the Parliament had more than once threatened
to deliver him--Wilson--to the sheriff--the other so-called sheriff,
not the present good gentleman.

Ralph asked the witness three questions.

"Have we ever met before?"

"Ey, but we'll never meet again, I reckon," said the man, with a
knowing wink.

"Did you serve under me in the army of the Parliament?"

"Nowt o' t' sort," with a growl.

"Were you captured by the King's soldiers, and branded with a hot
iron, as a spy of their own who was suspected of betraying them?"

"It's a' a lie. I were never brandet."

"Pull up the right sleeves of your jerkin and sark."

The witness refused.

Justice Hide called on the keeper to do so.

The witness resisted, but the sleeves were drawn up to the armpit. The
flesh showed three clear marks as of an iron band.

The man was hurried away, amid hissing in the court.

The next witness was the constable, Jonathan Briscoe. He described
being sent after Wilson early on the day following that agent's
departure from Carlisle. His errand was to bring back the prisoner. He
arrived at Wythburn in time to be present at the inquest. The prisoner
Stagg was then brought up and discharged.

Ralph asked if it was legal to accuse a man a second time of the same
offence.

Justice Millet ruled that the discharge of a coroner (even though he
were a resident justice as well) was no acquittal.

The witness remembered how at the inquiry the defendant Ray had
defended his accomplice. He had argued that it was absurd to suppose
that a man of Stagg's strength could have kil