"Nonsense, Alfred!" said old Mr. Gray. "I would not grudge you the money if you did not want it for a bad purpose. You must not excuse men who go out with guns and fire at their fellow-creatures in the dark."
"Martin did not fire, uncle--that is what I want to prove, and save him, if I can, from transportation. He has a wife and child."
"Wife and child!" repeated the old man thoughtfully. "You did not tell me he had a wife and child; that poor woman came from Uffeulme."
"Providence must have guided her," said the younger Gray. "It was indeed Harvey's wife and son whom you so lately relieved."
"You shall have the money. I have all through life prayed that my heart may not be hardened; and I find, old as I am, that, every day I have fresh lessons to learn."
The next morning, while Alfred held anxious consultation with the lawyers, the wife and husband met within the prison walls. They sat together in silence, for neither could speak a single word of hope. The boy never forgot that long and dreary day, during which he watched, with wondering thoughts, the sad faces of his ruined parents.
The Crown Court of the Castle was next morning crowded to overflowing. Among the struggling crowd that vainly sought to gain admission, was Martin Harvey's wife. She was rudely repulsed by the door-keepers, who "wondered what women wanted in such places." She still strove to keep her ground, and watched with piteous looks the doors of the court. She braved the heat and pressure for some time; but a sickly faintness at length came over her. She was endeavoring to retreat into the open air, when she felt some one touch her shoulder, and turning, saw Alfred Gray making his way toward her. After a moment's pause in the cool air, he led her round to a side-door, through which there was a private entrance into the court. He whispered a word to an officer, who admitted them, and pointed to a seat behind the dock, where they were screened from observation, and where the woman could see her husband standing between his two fellow-prisoners.
The prisoners were listening anxiously to the evidence which the principal game-keeper was offering against them. The first, a man about sixty, excited greater interest than the others. He earnestly attended to what was going on, but gave no sign of fear, as to the result. Brushing back his gray locks, he gazed round the court, with something like a smile. This man's life had been a strange one. Early in his career he had been ejected from a farm which he had held under the father of the present prosecutor, Sir George Roberts; he soon after lost what little property had been left him, and, in despair enlisted--was sent abroad with his regiment--and for many years shared in the toils and achievements of our East Indian warfare. Returning home on a small pension, he fixed his abode in his native village, and sought to indulge his old enmity against the family that had injured him by every kind of annoyance in his power. The present baronet, a narrow-minded tyrannical man, afforded by his unpopularity good opportunity to old Ralph Somers to induce others to join him in his schemes of mischief and revenge. "The game," which was plentiful on the estate, and the preservation of which was Sir George's chief delight, formed the principal object of attack; the poverty of the laborers tempted them to follow the old soldier, who managed affairs so warily, that for nine years he had been an object of the utmost terror and hatred to Sir George and his keepers, whilst all their efforts to detect and capture him had, until now, been fruitless.