“And what if I cannot?” asked Willy.  “What then will happen?”

“Outlawry; and God send that that be all!”

“And what then?”

“The confiscation to the Crown of these goods and chattels.”

“How so?” said Rotha, coming forward.  “Mrs. Ray is still alive, and this is a brother.”

“They must go elsewhere, young mistress.”

“You don’t mean that you can turn the poor dame into the road?” said Rotha eagerly.

The man shrugged his shoulders.  His companions grinned, and shifted in their seats.

“You can’t do it; you cannot do it,” said Willy emphatically, stamping his foot on the floor.

“And why not?” The constable was unmoved.  “Angus Ray is dead.  Ralph Ray is his eldest son.”

“It’s against the law, I tell you,” said Willy.

“You seem learned in the law, young farmer; enlighten us, pray.”

“My mother, as relict of my father, has her dower, as well as her own goods and chattels, which came from her own father, and revert to her now on her husband’s death.”

“True; a learned doctor of the law, indeed!” said the constable, turning to his fellows.

“I have also my share,” continued Willy, “of all except the freehold.  These apportionments the law cannot touch, however it may confiscate the property of my brother.”

“Look you, young man,” said the constable, facing about and lifting his voice; “every commissioner must feel that the law had the ill-luck to lose an acute exponent when you gave up your days and nights to feeding sheep; but there is one point which so learned a doctor ought not to have passed over in silence.  When you said the wife of the deceased had a right to her dower, and his younger son to his portion, you forgot that the wife and children of a traitor are in the same case with a traitor himself.”

“Be plain, sir; what do you mean?” said Willy.

“That wise brain of yours should have jumped my meaning; it is that Angus Ray was as much a traitor as his son Ralph Ray, and that if the body of the latter is not delivered to judgment within fourteen days, the whole estate of Shoulthwaite will be forfeited to the Crown as the property of a felon and of the outlawed son of a felon.”

“It’s a quibble—­a base, dishonorable quibble,” said Willy; “my father cared nothing for your politics, your kings, or your commonwealths.”

The constables shifted once more in their seats.

“He feels it when it comes nigh abreast of himself,” said one of them, and the others laughed.

Rotha was in an agony of suspense.  This, then, was what the woman had meant by her forebodings of further disaster to the semiconscious sufferer in the adjoining room.  The men rose to go.  Wrapping his cloak about him, the constable who had been spokesman said,—­

“You see it will be wisest to do as we say.  Find him for us, and he may have the benefit of pardon and indemnity for his life and estate.”