Between nine and ten o’clock as near as she could say, perhaps fully ten.

Was she sure which side of the bridge she was on—­north or south?

“Sure; it was north of the bridge.”

Ralph asked if the records of the coroner’s inquiry were at hand.  They were not.  Could he have them examined?  It was needless.  But why?

“Because,” said Ralph, “it was sworn before the coroner that the body was found to the south of the bridge—­fifty yards to the south of it.”

The point was treated with contempt and some derisive laughter.  When Ralph pressed it, there was humming and hissing in the court.

“We must not expect that we can have exact and positive proof,” said Justice Millet; “we would come as near as we can to circumstances by which a fact of this dark nature can be proved.  It is easy for a witness to be mistaken on such a point.”

The young woman Margaret Rushton was being dismissed.

“One word,” said Justice Hide.  “You say you have heard your husband speak of the prisoner Ray; how has he spoken of him?”

“How?—­as the bravest gentleman in all England!” said the woman eagerly.

Sim lifted his head, and clutched the rail.  “God—­it’s true, it’s true!” he cried hysterically, in a voice that ran through the court.

“My lords,” said counsel, “you have heard the truth wrung from a reluctant witness, but you have not heard all the circumstances of this horrid fact.  The next witness will prove the motive of the crime.”

A burly Cumbrian came into the box, and gave the name of Thomas Scroope.  He was an agent to the King’s counsel.  Ralph glanced at him.  He was the man who insulted the girl in Lancaster.

He said he remembered the defendant Ray as a captain in the trained bands of the late Parliament.  Ray was always proud and arrogant.  He had supplanted the captain whose captaincy he afterwards held.

“When was that?”

“About seven years agone,” rejoined the witness; adding in an undertone, and as though chuckling to himself, “he’s paid dear enough for that sin’ then.”

Ralph interrupted.

“Who was the man I supplanted, as you say—­the man who has made me pay dear for it, as you think?”

No answer.

“Who?”

“No matter that,” grumbled the witness.  His facetiousness was gone.

There was some slight stir beneath the jurors’ box.

“Tell the court the name of the man you mean.”

Counsel objected to the time of the court being wasted with such questions.

Justice Hide overruled the objection.

Amid much sensation, the witness gave the name of the sheriff of
Cumberland, Wilfrey Lawson.