“Yes?” Mr. Bellingham’s smile grew vaguer, and his two hands touched finger-tips in front of his magisterial stomach—­an adequate stomach but well on the right side of grossness.  He glanced at his fellow-magistrates right and left.  “It—­er—–­sometimes happens,” he suggested.

“I dare say.”  Captain Vyell took him up.  “But she has fainted under the punishment.  She has passed the limit of her powers, poor child; and they tell me that what she has endured is to be followed, and at once, by five hours in the stocks.  Gentlemen, I repeat I am quite well aware that this is most irregular—­you may call it indecent; but I saw the poor creature fall, and, as it happens, I know something that might have softened you before you passed sentence.”

Here the Clerk interposed, stiffening the Chief Magistrate, who wore a smile of embarrassed politeness.

“As His Honour—­as Captain Vyell—­suggests, your Worships, this is quite irregular.”

“To be sure—­to be sure—­of course,” hemm’d Mr. Bellingham.  “We can only overlook that, when appealed to by a person of your distinction;” here he inclined himself gently.  “Still, you will understand, a sentence is a sentence.  As for a temporary faintness, that is by no means outside our experience.  Our Beadle—­Shadbolt—­invariably manages to revive them sufficiently to endure—­er—­the rest.”

I’ll be shot if he will this time, thought the Collector grimly, with a glance down at a smear across the knuckle of his right-hand glove.  The sight of it cheered him and steadied his temper.  “Possibly,” said he aloud.  “But your worships may not be aware—­and as merciful men may be glad to hear—­that this poor creature’s offence against the Sabbath was committed under stress.  Her mother and grandfather have starved this week through, as I happen to know.”

“That may or may not be,” put in Mr. Trask—­a dry-complexioned, stubborn, malignant-looking man, seated next on the Chairman’s right.  “But the girl—­if you mean Ruth Josselin—­has not been scourged for Sabbath-breaking.  For that she will sit in the stocks—­our invariable sentence for first offenders in this respect.”  From under his down-drawn brows Mr. Trask eyed the Collector malevolently.  “Ruth Josselin,” he continued, “has suffered the scourge for having resisted Beadle Shadbolt in the discharge of his duty, and for unlawful wounding.”

“Excuse me,” put in Mr. Somershall, speaking across from the Chairman’s left.  Mr. Somershall was afflicted with deafness, but liked to assert himself whenever a word by chance reached him and gave him a cue.  He leaned sideways, arching a palm around his one useful ear.  “Excuse me; we brought it in ‘attempted wounding,’ I believe?  I have it noted so, here on the margin of my charge-sheet.”  He glanced at the Clerk, who nodded for confirmation.

“It didn’t matter,” Mr. Trask snapped brutally.  “She got it, just the same.”