They had walked many miles, and the boy limped painfully.  He often looked up anxiously into his mother’s face, and asked if they had much farther to go?  She scarcely appeared to notice his inquiries; her fixed eyes and sunken cheek gave evidence that sorrow absorbed all her thoughts.  When he spoke, she drew him closer to her side, but made no reply; until, at length, the child, wondering at her silence, began to sob.  She stopped and looked at her child for a moment, her eyes filled with tears.  They had gained the top of a hill, from which was visible in the distance, the dark massive towers of the cathedral and the church-spires of the city; she pointed them out, and said, “We shall soon be there, Ned.”  Then, sitting down on a tree that was felled by the road-side, she took “Ned” on her lap, and, bending over him, wept aloud.

“Are you very tired, mother?” said the boy, trying to comfort her. “’Tis a long way—­but don’t cry—­we shall see father when we come there.”

“Yes—­you will see your father once more.”

She checked herself; and, striving to dry her tears, sat looking wistfully towards the place of her destination.

The tramp of horses, coming up the hill they had just ascended, drew the boy’s attention to that direction.  In a moment he had sprung from his mother, and was shouting, with child-like delight, at the appearance of a gay cavalcade which approached.  About thirty men on horseback, in crimson liveries, surrounded two carriages, one of which contained two of His Majesty’s Judges, accompanied by the High Sheriff of the county, who, with his javelin-men, was conducting them to the city, in which the Lent Assizes were about to be held.

The woman knelt until the carriages and the gaudy javelin-men had turned the corner at the foot of a hill, and were no longer visible; with her hands clasped together, she had prayed to God to temper with mercy the heart of the Judge, before whom her unfortunate husband, now in jail, would have to stand his trial.  Then, taking the boy again by the hand—­unable to explain to him what he had seen—­she pursued her way with him, silently, along the dusty road.

As they drew nearer to the city, they overtook various groups of stragglers, who had deemed it their duty, in spite of the inclement weather to wander some miles out of the city to catch an early glimpse of “My Lord Judge,” and the gay Sheriff’s officers.  Troops, also, of itinerant ballad-singers, rope-dancers, mountebanks, and caravans of wild beasts, still followed the Judges, as they had done throughout the circuit.  “Walk more slowly, Ned,” said the mother, checking the boy’s desire to follow the shows.  “I am very tired; let us rest a little here.”  They lingered until the crowd was far ahead of them—­and were left alone on the road.

Late in the evening, as the last stragglers were returning home, the wayfarers found themselves in the suburbs of the city, and the forlorn woman looked around anxiously for a lodging.  She feared the noisy people in the streets; and, turning timidly towards an old citizen who stood by his garden-gate, chatting to his housekeeper, and watching the passers-by—­there was a kindness in his look which gave her confidence—­so, with a homely courtesy, she ventured to inquire of him where she might find a decent resting-place.