ot this all, your Majesty; there is more and worse. Many
testified that a witch, since gone from the village, none know whither,
did foretell, and speak it privately in their ears, that the sick man
WOULD DIE BY POISON--and more, that a stranger would give it--a stranger
with brown hair and clothed in a worn and common garb; and surely this
prisoner doth answer woundily to the bill. Please your Majesty to give
the circumstance that solemn weight which is its due, seeing it was
FORETOLD."

This was an argument of tremendous force in that superstitious day. Tom
felt that the thing was settled; if evidence was worth anything, this
poor fellow's guilt was proved. Still he offered the prisoner a chance,
saying--

"If thou canst say aught in thy behalf, speak."

"Nought that will avail, my King. I am innocent, yet cannot I make it
appear. I have no friends, else might I show that I was not in Islington
that day; so also might I show that at that hour they name I was above a
league away, seeing I was at Wapping Old Stairs; yea more, my King, for I
could show, that whilst they say I was TAKING life, I was SAVING it. A
drowning boy--"

"Peace! Sheriff, name the day the deed was done!"

"At ten in the morning, or some minutes later, the first day of the New
Year, most illustrious--"

"Let the prisoner go free--it is the King's will!"

Another blush followed this unregal outburst, and he covered his
indecorum as well as he could by adding--

"It enrageth me that a man should be hanged upon such idle, hare-brained
evidence!"

A low buzz of admiration swept through the assemblage. It was not
admiration of the decree that had been delivered by Tom, for the
propriety or expediency of pardoning a convicted poisoner was a thing
which few there would have felt justified in either admitting or
admiring--no, the admiration was for the intelligence and spirit which
Tom had displayed. Some of the low-voiced remarks were to this effect--

"This is no mad king--he hath his wits sound."

"How sanely he put his questions--how like his former natural self was
this abrupt imperious disposal of the matter!"

"God be thanked, his infirmity is spent! This is no weakling, but a
king. He hath borne himself like to his own father."

The air being filled with applause, Tom's ear necessarily caught a little
of it. The effect which this had upon him was to put him greatly at his
ease, and also to charge his system with very grat