that the Vehmique Institution,[1] which was the name that it commonly
bore, although its power consisted in a wide system of espionage, and
the tyrannical application of force which acted upon it, was yet, (so
rude were the ideas of enforcing public law,) accounted to confer a
privilege on the country in which it was received, and only freemen
were allowed to experience its influence. Serfs and peasants could
neither have a place among the Free Judges, their assessors, or
assistants; for there was in this assembly even some idea of trying
the culprit by his peers.

We must now return to the brave Englishman, who, though feeling all
the danger he encountered from so tremendous a tribunal, maintained
nevertheless a dignified and unaltered composure.

The meeting being assembled, a coil of ropes, and a naked sword, the
well-known signals and emblems of Vehmique authority, were deposited
on the altar; where the sword, from its being usually straight, with a
cross handle, was considered as representing the blessed emblem of
Christian Redemption, and the cord as indicating the right of criminal
jurisdiction, and capital punishment. Then the President of the
meeting, who occupied the centre seat on the foremost bench, arose,
and laying his hand on the symbols, pronounced aloud the formula
expressive of the duty of the tribunal, which all the inferior judges
and assistants repeated after him, in deep and hollow murmurs.

* * * * *

A member of the first-seated and highest class amongst the judges,
muffled like the rest, but the tone of whose voice, and the stoop of
whose person, announced him to be more advanced in years than the
other two who had before spoken, arose with difficulty, and said with
a trembling voice,--

"The child of the cord who is before us, has been convicted of folly
and rashness in slandering our holy institution. But he spoke his
folly to ears which had never heard our sacred laws--He has,
therefore, been acquitted by irrefragable testimony, of combining for
the impotent purpose of undermining our power, or stirring up princes
against our holy association, for which death were too light a
punishment--He hath been foolish, then, but not criminal; and as the
holy laws of the Vehme bear no penalty save that of death, I propose
for judgment that the child of the cord be restored without injury to
society, and to the upper world, having been first duly admonished of
his err