"Let the sheriff take that man before a justice of the peace," said the judge. "It was you that led me into this mess!" shouted Drayton at Bonnithorne. "Only for you I would have been in Australia by this time." "Let the sheriff apprehend Mr. Bonnithorne also," said the judge. "As for you, sir," he continued, turning to Hugh Ritson, "I will report your evidence to the Public Prosecutor--who must be in possession of your statutory declaration--and leave the law officers to take their own course with regard to you." The action for ejectment was adjourned. Drayton and Bonnithorne did not trouble the world much longer. Within a month they were tried and condemned together--the one for personation; both for conspiracy. Paul Ritson was removed in charge of his warder, to be confined in the town jail pending the arrival of instructions from the Secretary of State. Hugh Ritson walked out of the court-room a free man. CHAPTER XVII. Hugh Ritson returned to his room on the pit-brow. On his way there he passed a group of people congregated on the bridge at the town end. They fell apart as he walked through, but not an eye was raised to his, and not one glance of recognition came from his stony face. Toward the middle of the afternoon a solicitor came from Carlisle and executed a bill of sale on the machinery and general plant. The same evening, as the men on the day shift came up the shaft, and those on the night shift were about to go below, the wages were paid down to the last weights taken at the pit-mouth. Then Hugh Ritson closed his doors and began afresh his melancholy perambulation of the room. That night--it was Wednesday night--as darkness fell on the mountain and moorland, there was a great outcry in the Vale. It started at the pit-mouth, and was taken up on every side. In less than a quarter of an hour a hundred people--men, women, and children--were gathered about the head of the shaft. There had been a run of sand in the pit, and some of the hands were imprisoned in the blocked-up workings. Cries, moans, and many sounds of weeping arose on the air in one dismal chorus. "I knew it would come;" "I telt the master lang ago;" "Where's my man?" "And mine?" "And my poor barn--no'but fifteen." "Anybody seen my Willie?" "Is that thee, Robbie, ma lad?--No." As every cageful of men and boys came to the surface, there was a rush of mothers, wives, and fathers to recognize their own. Hugh Ritson went out and pushed his way through the people. "Where is the sand running?" he asked of a pitman just landed. "In the sandy vein, 2, 3, 1," answered the man. "Then the shaft is clear?" "Ay, but the water's blocked in the main working, and it's not safe to go down." Hugh Ritson had taken the man's candle out of his hand, and was fixing it with the putty in the front of his own hat. "Are you ready?" he shouted to the engine-man, above the babel of voices.