lash, and saw Mr. Archfield and Mr. Oakshott fighting."

"Mr. Archfield! The prisoner? Did he come to gather mouse-ear
too?"

"No. His wife had sent him over with a pattern of sarcenet for me
to match in London."

"Early rising and prompt obedience." And there ensued the inquiries
that brought out the history of what she had seen of the encounter,
of the throwing the body into the vault, full dressed, and of her
promise of silence and its reason. Mr. Cowper did not molest her
further except to make her say that she had been five months at the
Court, and had accompanied the late Queen to France.

Then came the power of cross-examination on the part of the
prisoner. He made no attempt to modify what had been said before,
but asked in a gentle apologetic voice: "Was that the last time you
ever saw, or thought you saw, Peregrine Oakshott?"

"No." And here every one in court started and looked curious.

"When?"

"The 31st of October 1688, in the evening."

"Where?"

"Looking from the window in the palace at Whitehall, I saw him, or
his likeness, walking along in the light of the lantern over the
great door."

The appearance at Lambeth was then described, and that in the garden
at Archfield House. This strange cross-examination was soon over,
for Charles could not endure to subject her to the ordeal, while she
equally longed to be able to say something that might not damage
him, and dreaded every word she spoke. Moreover, Mr. Cowper looked
exceedingly contemptuous, and made the mention of Whitehall and
Lambeth a handle for impressing on the jury that the witness had
been deep in the counsels of the late royal family, and that she was
escorted from St. Germain by the prisoner just before he entered on
foreign service.

One of the servants at Fareham was called upon to testify to the
hour of his young master's return on the fatal day. It was long
past dinner-time, he said. It must have been about three o'clock.

Charles put in an inquiry as to the condition of his horse. "Hard
ridden, sir, as I never knew your Honour bring home Black Bess in
such a pickle before."

After a couple of young men had been called who could speak to some
outbreaks of dislike to poor Peregrine, in which all had shared, the
case for the prosecution was completed. Cowper, in a speech that
would be irregular now, but was permissible then, pointed out that
the jealousy, dislike, and Jacobite proclivities of the Archfield
f