“Resign!  Nonsense! “said Mr. Williams.  “Stand firm.  We will stand by you, and who can hurt you then?”

“You are very good, sirs.  Without you I couldn’t put up with any more of this—­to be baited and badgered in my own prison, after serving my queen so many years by sea and land.”

“Poor fellow!” said Mr. Woodcock.

“And how can I make head against such a man as Eden—­a lawyer in a parson’s skin, an orator too that has a hundred words to say to my one?”

“Let him talk till he is hoarse, we will not let him hurt you.”

“Thank you, gentlemen, thank you.  Your wishes have always been my law.  You bid me endure all this insolence; honored by your good opinion, and supported by your promise to stand by me, I will endure it.”  And Mr. Hawes was seen to throw off the uneasiness he had put on to bind the magistrates to his defense.

“They are coming back again.”

“Who is this with them?”

Mr. Hawes muttered an oath.  “It is a refractory prisoner I had sent to the dark cell.  I suppose they will examine him next, and take his word against mine.”

(Chorus of Visiting Justices.) “Shame!”

CHAPTER XXV.

MR. EDEN had taken Mr. Lacy to the dark cells.  Evans, who had no key of them, was sent to fetch Fry to open them.  “We will kill two birds with one stone—­disinter a patient for our leathern gallows, and a fresh incident of the ——­ Inquisition.  Open this door, Mr. Fry.”

The door was opened.  A feeble voice uttered a quavering cry of joy that sounded like wailing, and a figure emerged so suddenly and distinctly from the blackness that Mr. Lacy started.  It was Thomas Robinson, who crept out white and shaking, with a wild, haggard look.  He ran to Mr. Eden like a great girl.  “Don’t let me go back—­don’t let me go back, sir!” And the cowed one could hardly help whimpering.

“Come, courage, my lad,” rang out Mr. Eden, “your troubles are nearly over.  Feel this man’s hand, sir.”

“How he trembles!  Why, he must be chicken-hearted.”

“No! only he is one of your men of action, not of passive fortitude.  He is imaginative, too, and suffers remorse for his crimes without the soothing comfort of penitence.  Twenty-four hours of that black hole would deprive him or any such nature of the light of reason.”

“Is this a mere opinion or do you propose to offer me proof?”

“Six men driven by this means alone to the lunatic asylum, of whom two died there soon after.”

“Hum! of what nature is your proof?  I cannot receive assertion.”

“Entries made at the time by a man of unimpeachable honesty.”

“Indeed!”

“Who hates me and adores Mr. Hawes.”

“Very well, Mr. Eden,” replied the other keenly, “whatever you support by such evidence as that I will accept as fact and act upon it.”