s head won't stand it." The woman looked up at the
cloudless sky. "For God's sake take your fun elsewhere!" she cried.

The women who were led to judgment looked at her stupidly. They too
suffered, without understanding, the heavy sport of men. At last one
said--

"Old woman, let him come. We'll have more mercy from a mazed man."

"Sister, you've been loose, they tell me," answered the old woman,
"an' must eat the bitter fruit o't. But my son's an innocent.
Jonathan, they'll look for you at the works."

"There's prouder work for me 'pon Dragon's Moor," the Mounster
decided, with smiling eyes. "Come along, mother, an' see me
exalted."

The crowd bore him off at their head, and the din broke out again.
The new Mayor strutted among them with lifted chin and a radiant
face. He thought it glorious. His mother ran into the cottage,
fetched a bottle and followed after the dusty tail of the procession.
Once, as they were passing a running stream, she halted and filled
the bottle carefully, emptying it again and again until the film
outside the glass was to her liking. Then she followed again, and
came to Dragon's Moor.

They sat the Mayor on a mound, took off his hat, placed a crown on
his head and a broomstick in his hand, and brought him the cases to
try.

The first was a grey mare, possessed (they alleged) with a devil.
Her skin hung like a sack on her bones.

"'Tis Eli Thoms' mare. What's to be done to cure her?" they asked.

"Let Eli Thoms buy a comb, an' comb his mare's tail while she eats
her feed. So Eli'll know if 'tis the devil or no that steals oats
from his manger."

They applauded his wisdom and brought forward the woman who had
pleaded just now with his mother.

"Who made her?" he asked, having listened to the charge.

"God, 'tis to be supposed."

"God makes no evil."

"The Devil, then."

"Then whack the Devil."

They fell on the pasteboard dragon and belaboured him. The sun
poured down on the Mayor's throne; and his mother, who sat by his
right hand wondering at his sense, gave him water to drink from the
bottle. They brought a third case--a boy who had been caught
torturing a cow. He had taken a saw, and tried to saw off one of her
horns while she was tethered in her stall.

The Mayor leapt up from his seat.

"Kill him!" he shouted, "take him off and kill him!" His face was
twisted with passion, and he lifted his stick. The crowd fell back
for a second, but the old woma