She had hardly uttered these words in a stern, masculine tone, when a loud voice--rich, and deep, and full--was heard, saying, "Beware! Once more I tell you, Catharine, beware!"
The three gentlemen looked round, for the speaker seemed to be in the room but no one was to be seen; and Robert's voice; soon called attention another way, as he exclaimed, "Good God! my mother has fainted."
It was long before Lady Coldenham could be brought to herself; and for a time those who surrounded her thought she was dead, so still and breathless did she lie, and so cold did her hands become. Lord Coldenham was sent for in haste; but he could not be found; and the only intelligence that could be obtained regarding him was, that he had been seen speaking to a tall old gentleman in the gate-way, and that shortly after he had ordered his horse and ridden away.
The attempts to recall Lady Coldenham to life at length proved successful; but she was in no state to continue the conversation, and the party separated, Robert Woodhall promising to visit his noble relation on the following day.
CHAPTER XL.
The court assembled in the town of Dorchester, and the notorious Jeffries, with his gross, ferocious face, took his place upon the bench. Several trials for treason were entered into in the morning, and dispatched with terrible rapidity. Death! Death! Death was the news brought to the prison every hour; and each man awaited his doom as his character permitted.
The court was crowded to suffocation; and most of the magistrates of the county were assembled near the bench. There were several clergymen among them; but one, in particular, seemed much interested in the course of the proceedings. He was a stout, tall, portly man, of the middle age, with bright, twinkling eyes, and a smooth, rosy countenance. He moved frequently on his seat; often looked toward the dock and the jury, and sometimes cast his eyes with an inquisitive glance at the paper of notes which lay before the judge, from whom he was not very far distant.
At length the case of Ralph Woodhall was called on; and, before the prisoner was brought into the dock, the good clergyman I have mentioned approached the judge, and was seen to whisper to him with a paper in his hand. Jeffries turned round, bent his beetle brows upon him, and surveyed him from head to foot.
"I thought it was some Presbyterian knave," he said, aloud, "and not a clergyman of the establishment. What do you come here for, sirrah? Like a straw witness, to bring off the guilty?"
"No, faith, my lord," replied Doctor M'Feely, with a laugh, and perfectly undismayed by the menacing aspect of the judge, "I came according to my duty, as a magistrate, and, moreover, to get your advice about this little bit of a paper; and perhaps to drink a bottle with you--or maybe two--after you have done the hanging and quartering, if you should be good-humored enough to ask me to dinner. We have drank a bottle together before now at the Miter, when you were a little man and I not much bigger: I paid for it, too, by the same token--But what am I to do with this paper?"