There was much preliminary business to go through, and the people who thronged the court watched it with ill-concealed impatience. True bills were found for this offence and that: assaults, batteries, larcenies.
Amid a general hush the crier called for Ralph Ray.
Ralph stepped up quietly, and laid one hand on the rail in front of him. The hand was chained. He looked round. There was not a touch either of pride or modesty in his steady gaze. He met without emotion the sea of faces upturned to his own face. Near the door at the end of the court stood the man who had been known in Lancaster as Ralph's shadow. Their eyes met, but there was no expression of surprise in either face. Close at hand was the burlier ruffian who had insulted the girl that sang in the streets. In the body of the court there was another familiar face. It was Willy Ray's, and on meeting his brother's eyes for an instant Ralph turned his own quickly away. Beneath the bar, with downcast eyes, sat Simeon Stagg.
The clerk of the court was reading a commission authorizing the court to hear and determine treasons, and while this formality was proceeding Ralph was taking note of his judges. One of them was a stout, rubicund person advanced in years. Ralph at once recognized him as a lawyer who had submitted to the Parliament six years before. The other judge was a man of austere countenance, and quite unknown to Ralph. It was the former of the two judges who had the principal management of the case. The latter sat with a paper before his face. The document sometimes concealed his eyes and sometimes dropped below his mouth.
“Gentlemen,” said the judge, beginning his charge, “you are the grand inquest for the body of this county, and you have now before you a prisoner charged with treason. Treason, gentlemen, has two aspects: there is treason of the wicked imagination, and there is treason apparent: the former poisons the heart, the latter breaks forth in action.”
The judge drew his robes about him, and was about to continue, when the paper suddenly dropped from the face of the other occupant of the bench.
“Your pardon, brother Millet,” he interrupted, and pointed towards Ralph's arms. “When a prisoner comes to the bar his irons ought to be taken off. Have you anything to object against these irons being struck away?”
“Nothing, brother Hide,” replied the judge rather testily. “Keeper, knock off the prisoner's irons.”
The official appealed to looked abashed, and replied that the necessary instruments were not at hand.
“They are of no account, my lord,” said Ralph.